Letters  io 
My  Son 


II I 

T 


/OO 


Letters  to  My  Son 


Letters 

to 

My  Son 


Houghton  Mifflin 
Company  :  Boston 
and  New  York.  1910 


COPYRIGHT,    IpIO,   BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  May  iqio 


Preface 


LITTLE  son,  these  letters  are  for  you,  so 
that  if  I  should  not  live  to  see  you  grow 
up,  if  I  should  have  to  leave  you  before  ever 
your  eyes  could  look  at  me,  or  your  voice  cry 
to  me,  you  should  know  how  much  I  had 
loved  you  and  longed  for  you,  and  you  would 
be  able  to  come  to  them  for  the  comfort  I 
would  have  given  to  you  if  I  had  lived. 

And  you  will  come  to  them,  won't  you,  just 
as  you  would  to  me  ?  And  they  shall  comfort 
you  as  I  would  comfort  you  if  I  were  really 
there  —  for  indeed  I  shall  always  be  *  really 
there,'  my  blessing,  even  though  you  may  not 
be  able  to  see  me.  When  you  're  a  baby,  and 
v 


2082698 


Preface 

a  boy,  and  a  man;  when  you're  good,  and 
when  you're  bad;  when  you're  victorious, 
and  when  you're  defeated,  I  shall  be  near 
you,  grieving  for  you  in  your  sorrow,  laughing 
with  you  in  your  joy,  teaching  you  to  know 
your  mistakes  and  helping  you  to  overcome 
them.  You  won't  be  your  mother's  own  son 
unless  you  make  a  good  many,  and  she  will 
be  so  sorry  for  the  birthday  present  she  has 
given  you,  that  if  she  did  n't  love  you  with 
every  breath  of  her  body,  common  decency 
would  make  her  that  she  would  have  to  share 
that  burden. 

There  will  be  times,  both  as  a  child  and  as 
a  man,  when  it  will  seem  as  if  an  end  has 
come  to  everything,  and  there  is  not  one  per- 
son on  earth  who  can  help.  It  will  not  be 
true,  for  while  life  and  reason  last  the  end 
does  not  come.  But  when  it  happens,  laddie, 
come  away  to  me  and  we  will  talk  it  out  to- 
gether. We  will  be  foolish  together  and  wise 
vi 


Preface 

together  and  at  last  strong  together,  because 
when  I  was  in  the  world  it  seemed  as  if  there 
were  no  furnace  that  I  did  not  tread,  and  even 
though  it  blistered  and  seared,  yet  it  taught 
me  to  know  all  the  pain  —  and  all  the  joy  — 
that  the  earth  holds. 

And  remember  that  whatever  I  tell  you 
will  not  be '  preaching.'  I  only  speak  as  a  man 
would  if  he  were  to  say,  'Friend,  the  road  is 
rough;  take  my  staff  and  let  it  help  you.'  I 
would  help  you  when  you  were  perplexed  or 
sorrowful,  but  I  know  that  I  cannot  live  your 
life  for  you  and  I  do  not  want  to.  I  want  you 
to  make  your  own  and  to  make  it  well.  But 
which  ever  way  you  make  it  I  am  waiting  for 
you  just  the  same ;  never  forget  that. 

Oh,  little  thing,  if  your  mammy  has  to 
leave  you  and  by  any  chance  gets  to  Heaven, 
they  won't  want  her  there  very  long !  She  '11 
always  be  leaning  out  of  a  top-storey  window, 
trying  to  catch  sight  of  her  baby  as  he  goes 
vii 


Preface 

out  for  his  walk,  or  else  forgetting  to  do  her 
singing  while  she  worries  about  his  gaiters 
being  long  enough,  or  his  vests  warm  enough. 
Heaven  and  earth  will  have  changed  places 
then  and  I  shall  be  on  the  wrong  side. 

But  I  shall  have  had  you  all  the  beautiful 
time  you  were  coming. 

God  bless  you,  little  precious. 


Contents 


I.  ON  A  DISCOVERY  i 

II.  ON   SHOPPING   FOR  A  VERY 

YOUNG  MAN  17 

III.  ON  DAY-DREAMS  AND  CRICKET  25 

IV.  ON    LOVE    AND    A    MISUNDER- 

STANDING 43 

V.  ON  FATHERS  AND  MOTHERS  83 

VI.  ON  ANGER  101 

VII.  ON  RELIGION  in 

VIII.  ON  RESPECTING  THE  BODY  129 

IX.  ON  A  HAIR-BRUSH  141 

X.  ON  FEAR  149 

XI.  ON  LIVING  HEARTILY  161 

XII.  THE  LAST  173 


I 

On  a  Discovery 


I 

On  a  Discovery 


IT  was  not  for  some  time  that  I  could  make 
up  my  mind  to  tell  Oliver  —  that  is  your 
father,  little  son  —  about  your  coming.  After 
seven  years  it  seemed  too  good  to  be  true,  and 
if  it  were  not  true  I  would  not  have  him  dis- 
appointed ;  for,  although  he  never  said  much, 
I  knew  he  wanted  you  very  badly. 

When  he  said,  one  morning  at  breakfast, 
'I  am  going  to  drive  over  to  Hopwood's 
Farm  this  morning/  I  said,  'Well,  you  can 
drop  me  at  the  station  on  the  way';  and  I 
came  up  to  town  and  saw  the  doctor. 

It  was  as  I  had  thought,  but  to  know  it  to 
be  true  took  all  my  strength  away.  I  wanted 
3 


Letters  to  My  Son 

no  one  just  then  but  Nanny,  the  old  Nanny 
who  had  washed  and  dressed  and  scolded  and 
kissed  me  ever  since  I  was  a  little  scrap  of  a 
wriggling  squealing  baby  —  just  like  you, 
my  precious,  and  by  the  time  you  can  read 
this  she  will  have  done  the  same  to  you  many 
times,  I  know;  —  so  I  got  into  a  dingy  old 
four-wheeler,  because  it  seemed  safer,  and 
was  trundled  round  to  Clarges  Street,  where 
Nanny  and  Miles  —  Mr.  Nanny,  I  used  to 
call  him  —  have  their  house. 

Nanny  opened  the  door  to  me  herself. 
Miles  was  busy  attending  upon  the  second 
floor,  she  explained.  Then  she  led  the  way 
into  the  sitting-room. 

'Come  in  here/  she  said.  'These  are  your 
own  rooms  by  rights,  even  though  some  one 
else  has  got  them  now;  but  he's  away.'  She 
shut  the  door  and  came  towards  me.  '  Ye  're 
looking  tired,  my  bairn.  What  is  it  ? ' 

I  put  my  hands  on  her  shoulders,  and 
4 


On  a  Discovery 

looked    into    her    kind    old    anxious    face. 

'Nanny,  dear,'  I  said,  trembling  all  over, 
'  I  'm  going  to  have  a  baby.  It 's  quite  true. 
The  doctor  says  so ! '  Then  I  broke  down ; 
it  was  all  so  strange  and  unbelievable ;  and 
Nanny's  breast  was  there  for  me  to  cry  upon ; 
and  I  was  tired. 

We  never  quite  get  over  being  babies,  no 
matter  how  old  we  grow;  you'll  find  that, 
mannikin.  Nanny's  arms  were  round  me  and 
her  voice  was  mumbling  tendernesses  as  she 
put  me  on  the  sofa  and  took  off  my  hat. 

'There,  there!  Nanny '11  find  the  pins. 
Don't  you  bother,  my  precious.'  She 
plumped  up  the  cushions.  '  Now  lie  back  and 
rest :  that 's  better.  To  think  of  it !  My  bairn, 
that  I  've  nursed  and  smacked,  with  a  bairn 
of  her  own  at  last !  What  a  limb  he  '11  be,  too ! 
I  'm  thinking  ye  '11  have  to  hand  him  over  to 
me  right  away,  or  else  there  '11  be  no  doing 
anything  with  him.  Just  a  moment  now/ 

5 


Letters  to  My  Son 

She  went  out  of  the  room  and  came  back  with 
a  cup  of  tea.  'Drink  this,  dearie;  it'll  keep 
you  going  till  you  get  some  lunch.  And  Mr. 
Nanny  shall  do  you  some  cutlets  his  very 
own  self.  You  don't  forget  Mr.  Nanny's  cut- 
lets, do  you  ? '  She  pulled  down  the  blind, 
and  covered  me  over;  then,  when  she  had 
petted  and  coaxed  and  fussed,  she  said, 
'Now  sleep,  till  I  come  to  you  again.' 

'Nanny,'  I  said,  holding  on  to  her  hand 
hard,  'you  will  have  your  lunch  with  me  ? ' 

'Of  course  I  will,  dearie,  if  you  wish  it; 
though  what  Miles  will  say  to  me  eating  his 
best  cutlets  in  the  best  parlour,  and  him  by 
hisself  out  in  the  kitchen  I  don't  know.'  She 
laughed  at  her  joke,  but  her  eyes  were  glis- 
tening. Then  she  bent  over  me  and  kissed 
me.  'Ye '11  have  a  good  rest, won't  ye?  For 
the  bairnie's  sake/  she  whispered. 

My  son,  you  will  never  forget  to  be  good  to 
Nanny,  will  you  ? 

6 


On  a  Discovery 

When  I  got  home  again  it  was  half-past 
three,  and  Oliver  had  gone  out  for  a  ride.  I 
told  the  maid  to  tell  him  when  he  came  in 
that  I  had  gone  up  to  rest,  and  would  come 
to  the  drawing-room  for  tea.  But  there  was 
no  rest  for  me.  After  I  had  chosen  the  gown 
that  I  knew  he  liked  me  in  best,  I  went  to  my 
own  little  room  to  lie  down.  That  room  was 
just  papered  with  pictures  of  your  father,  my 
precious,  and  I  lay  awake  looking  from  one  to 
the  other,  till  at  last  I  had  to  get  up  and  visit 
them  all  in  turn,  from  the  fat  one  in  the  shell, 
that  always  makes  him  wild  when  he  sees  it, 
to  the  one  in  the  leather  frame  on  the  mantel- 
piece, the  one  he  had  taken  for  me  the  day 
before  we  were  married. 

There  was  a  funny  little  blur  of  an  Oliver 
in  a  long  embroidered  robe  and  shoulder- 
knots  ;  a  cross  little  Oliver  in  a  full  frock  and 
a  top-knot;  a  jaunty  little  Oliver  in  a  velvet 
suit  and  pearl  buttons,  with  his  legs  carefully 
7 


Letters  to  My  Son 

crossed  and  his  head  thrown  back;  a  solemn 
little  Oliver  in  an  Eton  collar;  a  fine  young 
swaggering  Oliver,  with  a  pencil-mark  of 
down  on  his  lip,  sitting  astride  the  horse  he 
had  brought  in  a  length  ahead  of  the  others 
at  a  country  race-meeting;  and  the  steady- 
eyed  straight-browed  Oliver  who  is  the  man 
of  to-day.  The  one  in  the  shell  I  call  the  little 
bath  Oliver,  beloved,  because  he  has  n't  a 
stitch  on.  Don't  you  ever,  if  I  am  not  there  to 
protect  you,  let  any  one  take  you  in  a  shell,  no 
matter  bow  beautiful  your  legs  are!  It's  a 
shabby  trick  to  play  on  a  man  when  he 's  not 
able  to  choose  for  himself.  Just  you  yell  and 
slip  and  slither  till  they  lose  patience  and 
have  to  dress  you  like  a  Christian,  or  at  least 
like  a  Christianised  heathen.  Insist,  at  any 
rate,  that  there  shall  be  a  wisp  of  something 
behind  which  you  can  shelter  from  a  jeering 
and  a  heartless  posterity. 

I  found  the  shell  portrait  one  day  when  I 
8 


On  a  Discovery 

was  turning  out  a  drawer  in  an  old  desk.  On 

the  back  was  written,  'Oliver  John  T , 

aged  one  month ;  weight,  thirteen  pounds/ 

'Oh!*  I  said,  'you  improper  person! 
Come  and  look  at  this/ 

He  was  reading  the  paper  by  the  fire. 

'  What  is  it  ? '  he  said,  in  a  preoccupied  sort 
of  voice ;  then  he  looked  up  and  caught  sight 
of  the  picture. 

'That  beastly  thing  cropped  up  again ! '  he 
said  (quite  crossly  for  him,  because  he  is  n't 
at  all  a  cross  person  really  —  as  you  will  have 
found  out  by  this,  for  yourself,  honey).  'I 
thought  I  'd  torn  them  all  up/  He  held  out 
his  hand  for  it. 

I  looked  at  it  hard  for  a  while. 

'Give  it  to  me,  Madge/  He  still  held  out 
his  hand. 

But  I  shook  my  head.  'No,'  I  said,  stuffing 
it  into  the  front  of  my  blouse ; '  I  have  another 
use  for  it/ 

9 


Letters  to  My  Son 

'You  're  not  to  go  showing  it  round  at  your 
tea-parties/  he  said  in  a  panic. 

'You  can  trust  me  to  do  nothing  that  is  un- 
scrupulous,' I  said  mysteriously;  and  he 
laughed  and  went  back  to  his  paper. 

A  week  or  two  later  I  said,  one  day  after 
lunch :  — 

'I  invite  you  to  tea  in  my  boudoir  this 
afternoon.* 

He  made  a  bow.  'It  will  give  me  very 
much  pleasure/  he  said  formally;  then  he 
looked  at  me  out  of  the  tail  of  his  eye.  'I 
wonder  what  you  are  up  to  now/ 

I  said  nothing.  That  afternoon,  when  we 
had  finished  our  tea,  and  he  was  hunting 
about  on  the  mantelpiece  for  matches  to 
light  his  cigarette  with,  he  stopped  suddenly. 

'  Hullo,  what 's  that  ? '  he  said,  pointing  to 
the  wall. 

'That/  I  said,  'is  what  I  invited  you  up  to 
see.  It  is  arranged  on  the  principle  of  the  old 
10 


On  a  Discovery 

masterpieces  in  the  continental  cathedrals. 
Here  you  have  a  small  brown  frame;  inside 
the  frame  is  a  curtain  hung  from  a  minute 
steel  rod  —  in  reality  a  knitting-needle. 
There  is  a  cord  attached  to  the  curtain,  and 
secured  at  the  side  upon  this  hook.  I  detach 
the  cord  from  the  hook,  draw  the  curtain 
aside,  and  the  masterpiece  is  exposed  to  view 
—  so/  Oliver  stared  mutely  at  the  hated 
photograph,  under  which  were  written  the 
words,  'My  Husband/  'Then  I  pull  the 
other  end  of  the  cord,  and  the  picture  is  cov- 
ered up  again  till  the  next  party  of  tourists 
have  paid  their  francs  to  see  it.  Neat,  is  it 
not?' 

'Oh,  you  little  stupid! '  he  said,  w!.cn  at 
last  he  had  got  his  breath.  'Who  rigged  it  up 
for  you  ? ' 

'Old  Jonas'  —  He  is  the  carpenter,  be- 
loved — '  did  all  the  mechanical  part,  and  I 
put  the  finishing  touches,  which  were  the 
ii 


Letters  to  My  Son 

picture  and  the  curtain.  I  explained  exactly 
what  I  wanted  and  he  carried  it  out,  well, 
I  think/ 

He  put  his  arm  round  my  shoulders  and 
stared  at  the  frame,  his  mouth  twitching. 

'And  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  it,  now 
you  Ve  got  it  ? ' 

'Nothing;  believe  me,  nothing/  I  said 
earnestly.  'I  only  wanted  to  complete  the 
collection,  and  as  you  seemed  sensitive  about 
it,  I  did  it  in  a  way  least  calculated  to  give 
you  pain.  You  trust  me,  don't  you  ? ' 

'Ab-so-/ttte-ly,'  he  said,  kissing  me  a  lot  of 
times.  'You're  a  miserable  little  humbug/ 

And  that 's  the  story  of  your  father  in  the 
shell,  my  son. 

After  I  had  gone  round  all  the  photographs, 
I  drew  a  chair  up  to  the  fire  and  sat  listening 
for  the  sound  of  his  horse's  hoofs.  Then  it 
came  to  me  that  this  was  where  I  would  like 
to  tell  him:  in  this  little  room  that  had  all 
12 


On  a  Discovery 

sorts  of  sweet  memories  stored  up  in  it.  I 
rang  the  bell. 

'Tell  the  master  I  am  here,  when  he  comes 
in,  Ellen,  and  we  will  have  tea  here  instead 
of  in  the  drawing-room.' 

She  went  away.  Presently  I  heard  him 
ride  into  the  yard.  Ellen  met  him  on  the 
stairs. 

'The  mistress  is  in  her  own  room,  sir,'  I 
heard  her  say. 

'All  right,  thank  you.  I  '11  have  my  bath 
first.  Just  turn  on  the  water  for  me,  will 
you?' 

He  went  off  to  his  dressing-room  and  in  a 
little  while  he  was  singing  in  his  bath.  Is  n't 
it  odd,  sonny,  how  all  people,  always, 
whether  they  make  a  beautiful  noise  or  an 
ordinary  noise  or  a  hideous  noise,  sing  in 
their  bath  ?  It  just  seems  as  if  they  'd  got  to. 
Ever  since  baths — with  taps  —  began,  they've 
done  it;  and  as  long  as  the  world  —  with 


Letters  to  My  Son 

taps  —  lasts,  they  '11  go  on  doing  it.  I  'm 
sure  you  make  an  awful  noise  in  your  bath, 
now  don't  you  ? 

And  soon  my  heart  jumped,  for  I  heard 
him  coming  along  the  passage.  There  was  a 
knock  on  the  door  and  then  it  opened. 

*  Madge,  are  you  here  ? ' 

He  came  into  the  room.  I  got  up  and  went 
towards  him.  He  put  his  arms  round  me  and 
kissed  me. 

*  I  have  n't  seen  you  since  breakfast.  What 
have  you  been  doing  with  yourself  in  town  ?' 

Ellen  came  in  with  the  tray.  He  went  and 
sat  in  the  easy-chair  by  the  fire  and  pulled 
Trixie's  ears  as  she  lay  at  his  feet:  she  is 
never  far  away  from  either  his  or  his  horse's 
heels. 

*I  had  lunch  with  old  Nanny,'  I  said, 
watching  Ellen  light  the  spirit-lamp  under 
the  kettle. 

'Oh!  How  is  she?' 


On  a  Discovery 

'Very  well/ 

Ellen  went  out  and  closed  the  door  behind 
her. 

*  Oliver,  I  went  up  to  see  the  doctor/  I  said 
quickly. 

He  turned  round  sharply  in  his  chair. 
'There 's  nothing  wrong,  surely !  Why  did  n't 
you  tell  me  ?  What  is  it  ? ' 

'No,  there  is  nothing  wrong.  I  went  to  see 
him  to  make  sure  of  something  before  I  told 
you.  I  did  n't  want  you  to  be  disappointed/ 

He  sprang  up  out  of  his  chair. 

'It  is  not-?' 

I  nodded  quickly.  'Yes;  he  said  I  was 
right;  it  is  true/ 

He  stood  quite  still,  his  arms  down  by  his 
sides. 

'O  Margie!'  he  said  at  last. 

And  the  tea  was  like  ink  when  we  came 
to  drink  it. 

My  little  son,  if  you  could  have  seen  your 
'5 


Letters  to  My  Son 

father's  face  and  heard  his  voice  as  he  said, 
'O  Margie!'  you  would  never  hesitate  to  go 
to  him  with  all  your  troubles,  great  and 
small. 


II 

On  Shopping  for  a 
Very  Young  Man 


II 

On  Shopping  for  a 
Very  Young  Man 


SUCH  a  day  I've  had  to-day,  babykin; 
spending  money  all  the  time !  Indeed,  if 
you're  not  the  handsomest  man-child  that 
ever  lay  in  a  bassinette  it  won't  be  the  fault 
of  Nanny  and  me,  for  we  've  set  all  the  peo- 
ple working  to  weave  you  clothes  that  will 
make  the  fairies  feel  that  they  must  put  up 
their  shutters  at  once  and  take  to  road-mend- 
ing. 

Oliver  drove  me  to  the  station  and  put  me 
into  the  train,  and  Nanny  met  me  at  Padding- 
ton  with  a  brougham  and  Jenks  on  the  box. 
Jenks  used  to  drive  for  an  uncle  a  long  time 
ago,  when  I  was  a  little  girl;  now  he  has  re- 
19 


Letters  to  My  Son 

tired  from  service  and  bought  a  carriage  of 
his  own,  and  he  hires  it  out. 

First  we  went  and  chose  your  cot  and  your 
basket:  they're  just  the  whitest,  softest 
things  that  ever  grew  in  a  shop;  and  do  you 
know,  honey,  the  cot  has  got  ribbon-bows  on 
its  ankles!  It's  too  sillyanlovely ! 

That  kept  us  busy  till  lunch,  when  Nanny 
and  I  and  Jenks  and  the  horse  had  a  rest  for  a 
while,  and  after  that  we  all  started  out  again. 
I  wonder  if  you  '11  ever  have  to  shop  for  a 
baby  ?  I  don't  mind  telling  you  you  '11  have 
to  have  a  very  firm  equilibrium,  not  to  lose  it, 
if  you  do.  I  '11  just  make  a  list  for  you  now  of 
a  few  of  the  things  necessary  to  keep  a  little 
crumpled  thing,  that  might  n't  weigh  much 
more  than  half-a-dozen  pounds,  happy  and 
warm.  There  are  woven  swathes  and  flannel 
swathes  and  night-flannels  and  day-flannels 
and  night-gowns  and  day-gowns  and  long 
slips  and  embroidered  robes  and  head- 
so 


Shopping  for  a  Young  Man 

squares  and  flannel  squares  and  bibs  and 
shoes  —  and  I  won't  tell  you  any  more  things 
because  I  'm  tired  of  writing  them. 

I  would  n't  let  them  send  the  things  from 
the  shops  because  I  wanted  to  look  at  them 
again  before  I  went  to  bed ;  so  Nanny  stacked 
them  on  the  seat  beside  me  and  I  took  them 
down  in  the  train.  When  the  porter  had  put 
them  into  the  cart  and  we  were  driving 
home,  Oliver  said :  — 

'You  seem  to  have  brought  the  best  part 
of  London  down  with  you/ 

I  said,  'Oh,  no;  I've  only  brought  a  few 
things;  most  of  them  are  being  made  to  order, 
and  I  am  going  to  make  the  others  myself. 
These  are  just  some  for  patterns.' 

'Good  heavens,  Margie!  we'll  have  to 
move  into  the  Town  Hall  if  that's  the  truth.' 

Belovedest,  I  '11  tell  you  a  secret.  When  he 
lifted  me  out  of  the  cart,  he  kissed  me.  No 
one  saw.  There  was  Jackson  at  the  pony's 
21 


Letters  to  My  Son 

head,  and  Ellen  at  the  door,  and  he  stole  it 
under  their  very  noses.  There  was  just  one 
second  when  my  face  brushed  his,  and  in  that 
second  he  did  it.  Some  day,  my  son,  when 
you  have  a  woman  of  your  own,  she  '11  tell 
you,  if  she 's  a  real  one  and  speaks  the  truth, 
that  it  is  these  little  unexpected  things  that 
turn  an  ordinary  world  into  a  paradise. 

After  dinner  that  night  we  went  to  my 
room  and  undid  the  parcels;  and  I  made 
Oliver  guess  what  some  of  the  most  puzzling 
things  were.  It  was  lovely  to  see  him  turning 
a  binder  slowly  round  in  his  hands,  his  eyes 
going  from  it  to  me  and  back  again  to  it, 
helplessly. 

*  Those  are  his  corsets,'  I  said. 

'Corsets!'  he  repeated  bewilderedly. 

'Yes;  you  don't  know  that  all  the  very 
newest  things,  boys  and  girls  both,  have  to 
wear  corsets  till  their  little  insides  have 
learned  their  proper  place  ? ' 

22 


Shopping  for  a  Young  Man 

'  I  'm  sure  /  did  n't,'  he  said,  putting  it 
down  and  taking  up  a  wisp  of  white  stuff. 
'And  what  do  you  call  this  ?  It  looks  like  a 
doll's  handkerchief  with  holes  in  it.' 

*  I  'm  sure  you  did,  or  you  would  n't  be 
such  a  nice  shape  now,'  I  said.  'That  is 
a  shirt.' 

He  put  two  fingers  through  the  arm-holes 
and  looked  at  it  wonderingly.  Such  a  scrap  of 
a  thing  it  was,  beloved,  with  its  tiny  little 
lace-edged  armholes  and  its  ridiculous  little 
flaps.  I  watched  Oliver. 

'Surely  nothing  ever  born  could  be  small 
enough  to  go  inside  that?'  he  said  in  an 
awe-struck  voice.  Then  a  great  tenderness 
seemed  to  come  into  his  face  and  he  looked 
up  at  me. 

'The  little  thing!'  he  said  slowly;  and  he 
held  out  his  arms  to  me.  I  felt  a  laugh  and  a 
sob  break  in  my  throat,  and  I  ran  to  him. 
Oh,  honey! 

23 


Ill 

On  Day-Dreams 
and  Cricket 


Ill 

On  Day-Dreams 
and  Cricket 


I'VE  begun  my  sewing  for  you  and  I  keep 
it  in  two  baskets.  Into  the  one  I  put  all 
the  pernickety  things,  like  the  shirts  and  the 
tops  for  the  robes  and  the  night-gowns.  You 
see,  they  take  a  lot  of  thinking  out  and  plan- 
ning and  arranging ;  and  to  do  them  well  you 
have  to  give  the  whole  of  your  attention  to 
them.  There  are  sleeves  no  bigger  than  a 
good-sized  finger-stall,  and  shoulder-seams 
quite  an  inch  and  a  half  deep,  and  neck- 
places  that  look  like  wrist-holes,  and  wrist- 
holes  that  look  like  nothing.  Then,  when  the 
bodies  have  had  the  sleeves  set  into  them, 
and  the  sleeves  have  had  the  bands  put  on  to 
27 


Letters  to  My  Son 

them,  and  the  bands  have  had  the  lace 
whipped  round  them,  you  've  got  to  turn  the 
whole  thing  on  its  face  and  make  the  loops  for 
the  buttons !  It 's  no  light  matter,  I  can  tell 
you,  beloved,  because  you  have  to  sew  it  all 
with  stitches  no  bigger  than  a  fairy's  first 
tooth ;  and  you  '11  know  better  than  I  can  tell 
you  what  that  means ! 

But  into  the  other  basket  I  put  all  the 
things  with  the  long  seams,  and  all  the  time  I 
am  sewing  I  am  thinking  of  you  and  of  what 
it  will  be  like  when  you  come. 

There  have  been  some  fine  spring  days 
lately,  and  whenever  the  sun  is  shining  Ellen 
carries  a  chair  and  the  basket  with  the  long 
seams  out  to  the  little  grass-plot,  where  the 
apple  trees  grow ;  and  I  sit  and  sew  and  dream 
the  whole  of  the  lovely  warm  morning 
through. 

I  don't  think  there  could  be  a  lovelier  spot 
than  this  in  the  world.  This  morning,  as  I 
28 


Day -Dreams  and  Cricket 

sat  sewing,  a  little  breeze  was  ruffling  the 
stream  that  runs  by  the  garden,  and  a  great 
white  butterfly  was  making  love  to  a  purple 
iris  growing  down  by  the  rushes.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  stream  the  meadows  were 
gold  with  buttercups.  And  every  now  and 
then,  honey,  the  breeze  would  climb  up  into 
the  apple  tree  overhead  and  whisper  some- 
thing to  the  blossom,  and  down  would  come 
a  soft  little  fluttering  petal  as  pink  as  the  sole 
of  your  foot  will  be.  I  heard  what  the  breeze 
said,  although  it  never  knew  I  did.  It  thought 
it  was  being  very  cute  and  quiet,  but  it  wasn't 
as  cute  as  I  was.  I  listened  for  it  every  time, 
and  every  time  it  went  by  it  gave  a  nudge  to 
the  old  tree  and  said,  'Blow  him  a  kiss;  go 
on,  blow  him  a  kiss ' ;  and  down  would  come 
the  petals,  and  ofF  would  go  the  breeze,  very 
satisfied  with  himself.  He  was  a  hearty  little 
breeze,  beloved,  and  I  liked  him  extra  well 
because  he  seemed  so  fond  of  you. 
29 


Letters  to  My  Son 

And  as  I  sit  sewing,  all  your  life  opens  out 
before  me.  I  see  you  a  little  tender  help- 
less thing,  lying  close  in  the  hollow  of  my 
arm;  I  see  you  hoisted  on  your  father's 
shoulder,  shouting  and  beating  the  top  of  his 
head,  your  little  legs  twisted  round  his  neck 
for  safety,  your  limbs  as  lusty  as  your  lungs. 
And  I  sit  and  watch  the  two  of  you  come  up 
from  the  meadows  towards  me,  scarcely  dar- 
ing to  believe  that  such  joy  could  at  last  be 
my  own. 

This  morning  I  was  basting  a  long  seam, 
and  before  I  had  done  three  inches  of  it  you 
were  ten  years  old  and  going  to  bat  in  your 
first  school  match.  All  the  mothers  and  the 
fathers  were  going  and  it  was  to  be  a  great 
day.  Do  you  know,  beloved,  I  could  n't 
make  up  my  mind  which  frock  to  put  on !  I 
had  them  all  out  on  the  bed  and  as  fast  as  I 
chose  one  and  got  it  half  on  it  had  to  come 
off  again.  At  last  I  put  on  a  white  linen  and 
30 


Day-Dreams  and  Cricket 

a  big  hat  with  roses.  No  one  can  make  a 
mistake  with  white,  and  when  you  were  a 
baby  you  were  very  fond  of  roses. 

Oliver  and  I  drove  over  in  time  to  get 
good  seats  in  the  little  stand.  You  had  gone 
directly  after  breakfast;  you  were  a  per- 
son that  day  and  had  to  be  on  the  ground 
early,  so  we  did  n't  see  you  till  you  came  into 
the  field.  Your  side  had  lost  the  toss:  that 
meant  we  were  not  going  to  see  you  cover 
yourself  with  glory  for  quite  a  long  time. 
I  'm  sure  all  the  boys  who  went  in  to  bat  did 
it  very  nicely,  but  I  forgot  to  look  at  their 
scores  very  often,  beloved,  because  all  the 
time  I  was  watching  a  little  alert  body  quiver- 
ing in  the  slips,  or  a  pair  of  flannelled  legs 
twinkling  over  to  the  boundary.  And  once, 
when  you  caught  a  man  out,  I  nearly  jumped 
up  and  clapped  my  hands;  but  I  knew  men 
did  n't  like  their  womenkind  to  make  a  fuss, 
so  I  kept  quite  still  and  said  nothing. 
31 


Letters  to  My  Son 

Then  the  other  side  went  out  and  yours 
came  in.  You  were  fourth  man  in  and  it 
was  n't  long  before  you  came  stalking  out  to 
the  wickets,  bat  in  hand,  head  thrown  back, 
just  as  your  father  walks.  I  sat  up  straight 
and  clasped  my  hands  in  my  lap.  The  first 
three  wickets  had  fallen  easily.  But  that 
would  soon  be  altered.  You  were  going  to 
show  the  bowlers  that  they  could  take  no  such 
liberties  with  you ;  you  were  going  to  '  punish ' 
them,  were  n't  you,  my  son  ? 

The  bowler  took  a  run  and  swung  his  arm, 
the  ball  flew  through  the  air,  and  your 
mammy  looked  to  the  boundary. 

There  was  a  storm  of  applause,  a  groan 
from  a  boy  beside  me,  and  a  lull.  I  looked 
back  to  the  pitch. 

Oh,  beloved,  you  were  n't  running  at  all ! 
The  middle  stump  was  lying  flat,  the  bails 
were  on  the  ground,  and  you  were  walking 
off  the  field  with  your  head  held  higher  than 


Day -Dreams  and  Cricket 

ever.  And  you  went  through  the  gate  as  if 
you  did  n't  see  anything  that  was  before  you. 
Nobody  knew  better  than  I  did  what  you 
would  have  given  to  be  able  to  cry.  And  it 
would  n't  have  been  cry-babyishness,  either. 
You  knew  every  one  was  looking  to  you  and 
you  felt  quite  able  to  do  what  was  expected 
of  you.  Then,  when  that  awful  unexpected 
thing  happened,  it  would  be  the  sudden 
shock  of  it  that  would  upset  you ;  it 's  hap- 
pened to  me  in  other  ways,  too,  honey,  and  / 
knew  why  your  head  was  so  terribly  high  as 
you  walked  away,  and  why  your  smile  was 
so  wide  when  you  passed  a  master  on  the 
pavilion  steps,  who  said, '  Never  mind,  young 

T ;  better  luck  next  time/   /  knew  why 

you  went  blindly  into  the  first  empty  bath- 
room and  shut  the  door  and  turned  on  the  tap. 
A  fellow  could  n't  cry  because  he  was  bowled 
for  a  duck,  so  he  walked  like  a  mace-bearer 
and  smiled  like  a  sick  Columbine.  But  he 
33 


Letters  to  My  Son 

could  n't  have  kept  it  up  for  longer  than  just 
to  get  through  the  crowd;  and  he  rushed  to 
hide  somewhere  till  he  could  pull  himself  to- 
gether; and  he  turned  on  the  tap  because  he 
had  to  do  something,  and  because  the  sound 
of  the  water  splashing  would  keep  any  one 
from  hearing  the  noises  that  were  happening 
inside  his  throat. 

Do  you  know,  as  I  imagined  it  all,  a 
lump  came  into  my  throat,  and  the  tears 
dropped  on  to  the  work  I  was  doing.  I  saw 
your  father  sitting  up  straight  beside  me,  and 
although  the  only  thing  he  said  was,  'He 
came  out  to  it  too  soon,'  I  knew  he  was  mind- 
ing very  badly  —  for  you. 

Oh,  I  could  n't  leave  it  there !  I  made  it  a 
two-innings  match,  and  when  play  ceased  for 
lunch  I  made  it  rain  and  rain  and  rain  till  the 
wicket  was  like  a  sponge.  Then,  just  as  they 
were  wondering  if  they  would  have  to  aban- 
don the  match,  the  sun  came  out,  and  the 
34 


Day-Dreams  and  Cricket 

clouds  disappeared,  and  everything  was 
blazing  summer  again. 

But  the  rain  had  spoiled  the  wicket.  I 
meant  it  to.  The  other  side  had  put  up  a  big 
score  for  yours  to  beat.  Their  men  were  going 
down  like  ninepins  at  the  last,  but  they  could 
afford  to  lose  their  tail,  with  such  a  comfort- 
able balance  as  they  had  to  their  credit. 

Then  your  side  came  in.  Poor  lambs !  they 
could  scarcely  keep  their  feet  standing,  and 
when  it  came  to  run-getting,  they  were  slip- 
ping about  like  a  lot  of  old  gentlemen  on  an 
ice-slide. 

They  made  a  brave  attempt,  but  they  went 
down  one  by  one,  till  at  last  there  were  only 
three  wickets  to  fall  and  twenty-one  runs  to 
get. 

I  know  in  an  ordinary  way  that  does  n't 

sound  a  very  big  score  to  wipe  out,  but  you  '11 

understand  that  on  this  pitch  it  was  a  terrible 

task.   Nobody  ever  thought  they  would  do 

35 


Letters  to  My  Son 

it,  and  the  other  side  was  beginning  to  get 
very  cocky  and  our  side  was  growing  very 
quiet,  when  another  wicket  fell  and  you 
went  in. 

As  you  took  your  place  at  the  wicket,  a 
sandy-haired,  freckled  scrap  of  a  boy  next 

me  shouted  out,  'Go  it,  young  T !'  and 

I  saw  you  square  your  little  shoulders  and 
shake  your  head  as  if  you  were  tossing  the 
hair  out  of  your  eyes;  and  then  you  began. 

O  beloved !  I  did  n't  dare  look  at  you.  I 
just  went  on  staring  into  my  lap,  waiting 
every  minute  for  your  stumps  to  go  down. 
But  as  neither  your  father  on  the  left  of  me, 
nor  the  sandy  boy  on  the  right,  nor  the  boy 
for  the  other  side,  who  was  sitting  behind  me, 
said  anything,  I  looked  up  at  last  to  see  what 
was  going  on. 

'He's  getting  set/  said  the  sandy  boy 
critically. 

'Getting  set!'  said  the  boy  behind,  con- 

36 


Day-Dreams  and  Cricket 

temptuously.  'Who  '11  get  set  on  a  wicket  like 
that?' 

'Young  T will,'  said  the  sandy  boy, 

sharp  as  a  pistol-shot,  turning  round  to  face 
him.  Then  he  turned  quickly  again  to  the 
game.  I  did  n't  kiss  him,  beloved,  but  it 
was  n't  his  fault. 

'  He 's  playing  the  right  game,'  said  Oliver, 
after  a  while.  '  There 's  plenty  of  time,  and 
he 's  not  taking  any  risks.' 

You  went  on  sending  the  ball  back  quietly, 
but  nothing  happened.  I  suppose  it  was  dull 
for  the  other  side,  but  nothing  was  dull  for 
me  as  long  as  you  kept  in.  It 's  just  the  point 
of  view,  as  you  '11  find  directly  you  have  one. 

'  Oh,  hurry  up ! '  said  the  boy  at  the  back. 
'What  are  you  wasting  time  for  ? ' 

'Wasting  time  ? '  said  the  sandy  boy,  screw- 
ing round  again  and  grinning  ecstatically. 
'  He  is  n't  wasting  time ;  he 's  tiring  the  bowl- 
ing!' 

37 


Letters  to  My  Son 

There  was  a  yell  from  the  losing  side,  and 
the  boy  beside  me  shot  into  the  air. 

'Well  played,  my  son! '  said  Oliver. 

Honey,  you  'd  hit  a  fourer  so  truly,  that 
half-way  down  the  pitch  you  knew  you 
need  n't  run  for  it,  and  you  just  walked 
slowly  back  to  your  crease  like  a  gentleman 
with  plenty  of  time  to  catch  his  train.  And 
the  margin  narrowed  in  to  seventeen,  and  the 
sandy  boy  contented  himself  with  saying, 
'See  ?'  very  tenderly  to  the  boy  at  the  back, 
and  every  one  settled  down  to  watch. 

You  went  on  getting  some  ones  and  twos 
very  safely  until  you  had  left  ten  to  win ;  then 
you  hit  one  that  looked  like  a  boundary,  but 
you  had  to  run  it.  You  had  run  three  and 
were  going  for  a  fourth,  when  some  one 
yelled,  '  Come  back ! '  But  it  was  too  late  to 
turn  back,  so  you  went  on  as  hard  as  you 
could.  Oh,  you  could  n't  do  it !  The  ball 
had  already  been  thrown  from  close  in,  and 


Day -Dreams  and  Cricket 

you   were   only  half-way   up  the    pitch.  It 
rolled  in.    If  only  you  had  n't  — 

'  Missed,  by  Jove ! '  said  Oliver. 

'  Missed,  you  fool ! '  shouted  the  boy  at  the 
back. 

'Missed,  you  beauty!'  yelled  the  sandy 
boy  dancing  like  a  dervish. 

But  quick  as  a  flash  the  wicket-keeper  had 
picked  up  the  ball  and  knocked  off  the 
bails. 

*  How's  that?'  roared  the  crowd. 

'Out!'  said  the  boy  at  the  back,  and  the 
sandy  boy  and  Oliver  seemed  as  if  they  had 
forgotten  to  breathe. 

And  you,  sonny  ?  My  heart  gave  a  jump, 
and  then  seemed  as  if  it  had  stopped  beating. 
You  were  stretched  motionless  on  the  ground, 
your  bat  flung  out  in  front  of  you.  Were  you 
hurt  ? 

The  umpire  ran  forward  and  peered,  not 
at  you  but  at  the  bat. 
39 


Letters  to  My  Son 

'  Not  out !  *  came  a  thin  voice  from  the  field ; 
and  '  Not  out ! '  screamed  a  hundred  boys  as 
their  hats  flew  up  into  the  air. 

And  you  were  n't  hurt,  beloved :  you  were 
a  great  general  that  day;  you  were  taking 
your  only  chance,  and  it  won.  You  had  real- 
ised that  perhaps  the  bat  and  you  together 
spread  flat  on  the  ground  would  be  just  tall 
enough  to  reach  the  crease  and  leave  an  inch 
inside;  and  when  it  was  given,  you  were  up 
on  your  feet,  and  back  at  your  post  like  wink- 
ing, to  try  for  the  half-dozen  that  lay  between 
your  side  and  the  game. 

Oliver  forgot  he  was  your  father  and 
yelled  and  shouted  like  the  rest  of  them ;  the 
sandy  boy  turned  round  and  shook  the  back 
of  the  bench  we  were  sitting  on  with  his 
hands,  just  as  a  puppy  tears  a  rag  to  pieces 
with  his  teeth,  and  the  masters  called  out, 

*  Well  done,  young  T ! '  and  even  the  boy 

at  the  back  clapped  and  said,  'Good  play, 
40 


Day -Dreams  and  Cricket 

little  un!'  And  you  were  mine,  honey;  you 
were  mine! 

Then  came  the  rubbing  out  of  those  six. 
No  glory  games  and  fireworks  while  one  of 
them  stood  against  you.  The  match  was  not 
won  till  the  last  run  was  got,  and  every  run 
tried  for  on  that  pitch  was  a  life.  So  the  other 
two  wickets  —  who  were  really  bowlers  and 
did  n't  expect  to  do  more  than  keep  their  end 
up  —  just  stone-walled  while  you  slowly  piled 
them  up  one  by  one. 

And  as  you  carried  out  your  bat,  I  saw  you 
look  up  with  your  dear  eyes  all  shining  into 
the  grand  stand,  and  I  knew  you  were  search- 
ing for  me.  I  'd  have  known  it,  honey,  even  if 
you  had  n't  told  me  afterwards.  My  head 
was  up  nearly  as  high  as  yours  was  after  you 
had  made  your  duck,  —  and  I  should  n't  be 
surprised  if  it  were  from  the  same  cause,  ex- 
cept that  mine,  if  they  had  come,  would  have 
been  happy  ones,  —  and  I  felt  myself  saying 


Letters  to  My  Son 

inside,  very  hoighty-toightily,  'That  is  Oli- 
ver's and  my  son/  It  was  just  as  well  the 
people  did  n't  hear  me,  beloved. 

But  the  only  really  active  part  I  played  in 
the  affair  was  to  rub  you  very  thoroughly  for 
some  nights  after  with  embrocation. 

Do  you  know,  the  whole  of  that  dream 
happened  long  before  I  had  got  to  the  end 
of  my  seam  ? 


IV 

On  Love  and  a 
Misunderstanding 


IV 

On  Love  and  a 
Misunderstanding 


I'VE  got  a  confession  to  make,  beloved, 
and  I  think  I  will  make  it  to  you.  All 
yesterday  I  was  cross  and  bad-tempered  and 
wicked.  From  the  very  first  thing  in  the 
morning  everything  seemed  to  go  wrong.  I 
woke  feeling  cranky,  but  I  remembered  that 
Oliver  was  going  to  drive  me  over  to  lunch  at 
a  famous  old  inn  some  miles  away,  where  you 
sat  out  under  great  cherry  trees  and  ate  food 
fit  for  an  epicurean  king.  That  made  me  perk 
up  a  little.  I  like  my  food,  don't  you  ? 

Then  I  opened  my  letters.  There  was  one 
from  Nanny  saying  that,  as  Mr.  Nanny  had 
had  to  go  to  bed  with  a  bad  attack  of  influ- 
45 


Letters  to  My  Son 

enza,  she  would  not  be  able  to  come,  as  she 
had  hoped  to  do,  for  the  week-end;  but  she 
sent  her  dear  love  and  hoped  her  bairn  was 
taking  great  care  of  herself. 

Her  bairn  was  in  such  a  bad  temper  that 
she  almost  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  Mr. 
Nanny  of  an  intrigue  with  fate  for  the  pur- 
pose of  thwarting  her  in  what  then  seemed 
the  dearest  and  only  wish  of  her  heart.  That 
is  to  say,  beloved,  she  was  evil  enough  to 
pretend  that  poor  Miles  had  got  influenza 
just  to  spite  her  and  stop  Nanny  from  com- 
ing. 

The  next  letter  was  from  the  Stores.  They 
had  received  my  esteemed  order,  and  were 
sorry  to  say  that  they  had  no  more  of  the  lace 
like  enclosed  pattern  in  stock,  but  were  send- 
ing immediately  to  the  makers,  and  would 
advise  me  in  the  course  of  a  few  days. 

And  I  wanted  to  finish  the  robe  that  even- 
ing !  It  was  too  absurd,  and  ridiculous,  and 


A  Misunderstanding 

exasperating !  The  whole  management  of  the 
place  needed  reorganising. 

I  read  the  others  with  very  little  interest, 
and  then  Ellen  came  up  with  my  breakfast. 
Beloved,  the  bacon  was  overcooked,  and  the 
egg  was  underdone !  At  least,  I  think  it  was, 
although  a  maturer  judgment  makes  me 
wonder.  Anyhow,  Nanny  not  coming,  and 
the  Stores  having  no  lace,  made  me  sure  it 
was  then,  and  if  there  is  anything  I  hate  it  is 
chippy  bacon  and  an  egg  that  runs  madly 
all  over  the  plate  directly  it  sees  the  fork 
coming.  I  nibbled  some  toast,  sipped  some 
tea,  then  closed  my  eyes,  and  lay  back  wear- 
ily to  wait  for  the  end. 

And  it  was  n't  long  coming.  In  a  little 
while  there  was  a  tap  at  the  door,  and  Oliver 
came  in,  holding  an  open  letter  in  his  hand. 
His  face  was  troubled. 

'  I  'm  afraid  I  won't  be  able  to  take  you  for 
that  drive  to-day,  Margie,'  he  said  in  quite 
47 


Letters  to  My  Son 

a  nice  and  really  sorrowful  voice,  if  only  I 
had  been  civil  enough  to  notice  it.  'Read 
this/ 

I  felt  myself  go  faint  and  sick,  and  I  held 
out  my  hand  for  the  letter.  A  man  with  whom 
he  had  some  business  wanted  him  to  lunch  in 
town  and  talk  it  over;  the  man  was  leaving 
England  that  night. 

'Well?' I  said. 

'There  is  nothing  for  it  but  that  I  must  go/ 
he  said  regretfully;  'but  it  is  an  awful  nui- 
sance.' He  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and 
took  my  hand,  playing  with  the  rings  on  my 
ringer.  '  I  hope  you  are  n't  very  disap- 
pointed, dear;  but  we'll  go  to-morrow  if  it's 
fine ;  that  will  be  almost  the  same,  won't  it  ? ' 

A  sudden  passion  came  to  me  to  have  what 
I  wanted.  I  longed  fiercely  to  go  to-day;  only 
to-day  would  do. 

'  Oliver,'  I  said  quickly,  taking  hold  of  his 
hand  with  both  my  own,  'don't  go.  Stay;  I 
48 


A  Misunderstanding 

want  you  so  badly.'  I  looked  up  into  his  face 
and  waited.  He  must  see  what  it  meant  to  me. 

He  looked  surprised.  I  knew  he  could  n't 
understand  it,  and  how  could  he  be  expected 
to,  when  I  did  n't  understand  it  myself?  I 
only  knew  how  terribly  I  wanted.  At  any 
cost  I  must  have. 

*  Don't  go!  don't  go!'  I  repeated.  'Stay 
with  me.  I  want  you  so ! ' 

He  came  and  put  his  arm  round  me.  '  Poor 
old  thing!'  he  said  tenderly.  'I'm  so  very 
sorry,  but  what  can  I  do  ?  The  business  has 
got  to  be  settled  before  he  leaves,  and  he 
leaves  to-night.'  He  put  his  cheek  to  mine  and 
then  kissed  me.  'And  even  if  I  were  not 
obliged  to  meet  him,  —  which  I  feel  I  am, 
precious,  —  it 's  a  matter  of  two  hundred 
pounds  to  us,  and  I  'm  thinking  that,  while 
we  won't  starve  for  the  want  of  it,  two  hun- 
dred pounds  won't  come  amiss  to  buy 
feathers  for  the  little  peacock,  will  it  ? ' 
49 


Letters  to  My  Son 

He  laughed  coaxingly.  I  think  perhaps  it 
was  that  I  wanted  to  hear  him  say  that  he 
would  stay,  as  much  as  anything.  If  he  would 
have  said  it,  I  would  have  got  quite  normal 
again  and  refused  to  allow  him,  and  every- 
thing would  have  been  all  right.  But  he 
would  n't  say  it  unless  he  really  meant  to  do 
it,  and  he  could  n't  see  that  such  a  thing  was 
possible. 

I  looked  into  his  eyes  hungrily.  I  would 
make  him  say  it  by  sheer  force  of  wanting. 

He  looked  back  at  me,  and  his  eyes  were 
so  troubled,  beloved,  that  I  nearly  got  sensi- 
ble; but  the  devil  must  have  been  rampaging 
round  all  that  day,  for  directly  I  heard  him 
say,  'My  darling,  I  must  go/  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  excuse  himself,  I  got  cold  and  sick 
again. 

'Very  well,'  I  said  lifelessly. 

But  he  was  not  content ;  he  felt  things  were 
all  wrong. 

50 


A  Misunderstanding 

'You  know  how  much  rather  I  would  stay, 
don't  you  ?  Tell  me  that  you  know,  Margie/ 

'Yes,  I  know/  But  there  was  no  warmth 
in  what  I  said. 

*  Well,  kiss  me  and  tell  me/  He  put  his  face 
close  to  mine. 

I  turned  my  head  and  kissed  him  lifelessly 
on  the  cheek.  He  looked  at  me  for  a  moment, 
then  he  took  his  arm  away  and  got  up.  'I 
will  go  and  write  my  letters  now,'  he  said 
quietly.  '  I  shall  have  to  catch  the  eleven-fif- 
teen, and  if  I  possibly  can  I  will  be  back  in 
time  for  tea/  He  went  out  and  shut  the  door 
behind  him. 

I  lay  still,  while  all  the  spirits  of  evil  raged 
about  inside  me.  It  was  no  use  trying  to  re- 
mind myself  how  bad  it  was  for  you,  precious : 
I  was  like  one  possessed.  And  all  the  while  I 
lay  quite  still,  staring  at  a  spot  on  the  wall. 
Then,  suddenly  I  could  bear  it  no  longer; 
while  my  mind  moved  so  furiously  my  body 


Letters  to  My  Son 

could  not  be  quiet.  I  rang  the  bell  and  called 
for  my  bath  to  be  got  ready.  While  I  was 
having  it,  I  heard  Oliver  go  into  the  bedroom, 
and  then  go  away  again.  I  went  back  and 
dressed.  He  did  not  come  in  again,  and  pre- 
sently the  cart  was  brought  round  to  the  hall 
door,  but  I  did  not  go  down  to  see  him  off. 
Just  as  he  was  about  to  start,  I  leaned  out  of 
the  window  over  the  porch,  and  waved,  say- 
ing very  airily,  for  the  benefit  of  Jackson, 
'Come  back  as  early  as  you  can.'  I  had  to  do 
that  for  the  honour  of  the  house,  beloved, 
because,  as  a  rule,  I  go  to  the  door.  And  he 
waved  back  just  as  airily  and  called  out 
good-bye;  and  then,  when  I  had  watched  the 
cart  to  the  very  furthest  bend  in  the  road,  I 
went  to  my  room,  dismissed  the  maid  who 
was  dusting  there,  and  sat  down  on  the  couch 
and  shivered  as  if  I  had  the  ague. 

About  half-past  eleven,  Ellen  came  in  with 
a  cup  of  soup.    I  looked  at  it  with  disgust, 


A  Misunderstanding 

although  I  felt  as  if  I  were  melting  away  with 
hunger,  or  something  of  the  kind.  You  see, 
I'd  flouted  the  egg  and  bacon  at  breakfast, 
and  I'd  been  living  at  pretty  high  pressure 
ever  since. 

'No,  thank  you,'  I  said,  trying  to  speak 
very  politely.  'You  can  take  it  away,  Ellen/ 

Ellen  set  it  down  with  great  care  upon  a 
little  table,  and  placed  the  table  beside  the 
couch. 

'The  master  said  so,  ma'am/  She  gave 
the  things  on  the  tray  a  few  critical  touches, 
and  went  quietly  out  of  the  room. 

When  she  had  gone,  I  took  up  the  cup 
and  began  to  sip  languidly.  Soon  I  was 
drinking  ravenously.  It  was  nice  clear  soup 
with  sherry  in  it,  and  every  mouthful  that  I 
took  seemed  as  if  it  were  pulling  me  out  of 
the  pit.  He 's  a  very  nice  man,  your  father, 
honey,  and  a  very  beautiful  one  —  in  every 
way. 

53 


Letters  to  My  Son 

After  that  I  was  just  waiting  the  time  away 
till  five  o'clock.  Oh!  I  wanted  him  back 
again  to  tell  him  I  was  sorry,  and  to  ask  him 
to  forgive  me !  I  would  n't  deserve  it,  but  I 
felt  he  would  do  it.  I  tried  to  dawdle  through 
things  to  make  the  time  slip  away;  but  that, 
as  I  have  proved,  is  n't  the  way  to  do  it,  so 
don't  you  be  deceived  into  trying  it.  I 
could  n't  settle  to  anything.  I  wandered 
round  the  garden  till  lunch,  and  tried  to  go  to 
sleep  after ;  but  it  was  no  use.  I  lay  with  one 
eye  on  the  pillow  and  the  other  on  the  clock, 
and  made  calculations  of  every  moment  spent 
since  he  had  caught  the  eleven-fifteen  train  in 
the  morning.  He  would  get  to  town  about 
twelve,  go  to  his  club,  and  ring  up  the  man. 
Each  would  do  what  he  had  to  do,  separately, 
till  one  o'clock,  when  they  would  meet  and 
lunch  together.  It  would  be  early,  but  still 
they  were  both  pressed  for  time,  and  neither 
would  mind  that.  Generously  I  allowed  them 
54 


A  Misunderstanding 

an  hour  for  lunch.  That  would  give  Oliver 
two  hours*  margin  for  extra  things  and  to 
catch  his  train.  He  would  not  need  it;  but  as 
there  was  a  quick  train  down  at  four  o'clock, 
it  would  get  him  home  just  in  time  for  tea. 
And  I  —  I  would  dress  myself  in  the  old  soft 
gown  that  had  been  worn  on  so  many  his- 
toric occasions,  and  that  would  show  him  the 
minute  he  looked  at  me  how  sorry  and  peni- 
tent I  had  grown  in  the  meantime.  But  I 
would  tell  him  as  well.  Yes,  beloved,  when 
we  do  things,  we  do  them  ab-so-/wte-ly,  as 
Oliver  would  say. 

I  was  dressed  in  the  robe  of  repentance  and 
down  in  the  drawing-room  by  half-past  four. 
The  train  would  be  just  about  arriving.  He 
would  take  a  fly  and  be  here,  if  the  train  were 
up  to  time,  in  twenty  minutes.  I  played  a 
waltz,  looked  at  an  illustrated  paper  without 
seeing  what  was  in  it,  wound  some  odds  and 
ends  of  lace  on  a  card,  and  then  ran  up  to  the 
55 


Letters  to  My  Son 

bedroom  window  to  watch  for  the  fly.  The 
minutes  crawled  on  to  five  o'clock,  and  then 
fled  to  a  quarter  past.  Unless  there  was  a 
break-down  or  he  had  to  walk  from  the  sta- 
tion, he  was  n't  coming  by  this  train.  At  half- 
past  five  I  went  back  to  the  drawing-room. 
Ellen  came  in. 

'Shall  you  wait  any  longer  for  the  master, 
ma'am  ? ' 

'No;  you  can  bring  the  tea:  he  must  have 
missed  his  train.' 

He  had  missed  his  train,  when  he  knew 
how  much  I  was  wanting  him  back !  I  broke 
up  a  piece  of  cake  and  spoiled  a  muffin,  and 
poured  out  a  cup  of  tea,  but  as  for  eating  or 
drinking,  it  was  out  of  the  question.  Every 
moment  of  the  whole  day  I  had  been  looking 
forward  to  this  moment.  He  knew  it,  he  must 
have  known  it;  yet  he  had  left  me  to  have  my 
tea  by  myself.  Perhaps  it  only  looked  a  small 
thing,  but  the  great  underlying  principle  was 

56 


A  Misunderstanding 

there,  none  the  less.  He  had  appeared  to  be 
sorry  at  the  moment,  but  a  few  miles  of  dis- 
tance and  a  few  hours  of  time  were  enough  to 
wipe  out  any  disappointment  he  might  feel, 
and  deaden  him  to  any  amount  of  pain  that 
he  might  give. 

I  got  out  of  my  chair  and  went  upstairs 
slowly.  The  next  train  got  in  at  six  o'clock, 
but  I  had  no  more  longings  left.  I  was  not  a 
child,  even  though  I  had  behaved  rather  like 
one  earlier  in  the  day.  I  was  a  woman,  a 
woman  of  thirty,  and  not  to  be  played  with 
and  forgotten  like  a  toy  that  had  dropped 
from  his  hands.  Very  slowly  and  very  coldly 
I  took  off  the  gown  and  put  it  back  in  the 
drawer;  that  had  had  its  last  wearing  for  a 
good  time  to  come,  if  ever  I  put  it  on  again. 
There  was  no  revenge  in  the  thought,  belov- 
ed, only  a  great  weariness  and  a  sense  of  bow- 
ing to  the  inevitable.  If  it  had  come  it  had 
come,  and  there  was  to  be  no  moaning  over  it. 
57 


Letters  to  My  Son 

I  put  on  a  Japanese  thing,  and  lay  down 
to  read  till  it  would  be  time  to  dress  for  din- 
ner. We  would  meet  then,  and  by  that 
time  I  would  have  trained  myself  to  play  my 
part.  I  would  n't  be  angry,  or  injured,  or 
protesting.  I  would  be  just  as  if  nothing  had 
happened  —  with  a  difference.  I  would 
smile,  and  say,  'Well,  did  you  have  a  good 
day,  dear  ? '  And  when  he  said,  '  Yes,  Mar- 
gie, I  was  so  sorry  I  could  n't  get  back  to  tea, 
but  you  understood,  did  n't  you  ? '  I  would 
say,  '  Yes,  of  course ;  quite ' ;  but  there  would 
be  a  remoteness  that  would  be  so  small  he 
would  scarcely  be  able  to  notice  it,  yet  it 
would  make  him  wonder.  Beloved,  if  you  are 
a  man  when  you  read  this,  you  will  laugh, 
but  everything  I  tell  you  was  like  drops  of 
blood  being  squeezed  from  my  heart. 

Of  course  I  had  given  up  looking  forward, 
but  as  the  clock  struck  six  my  heart  suddenly 
thumped  like  an  engine,  and  although  I  tried 


A  Misunderstanding 

to  read  the  book  I  held  before  me,  my  eyes 
were  beginning  to  look  out  along  the  road, 
and  my  ears  to  strain  for  the  sound  of  horses' 
hoofs  on  the  flints. 

Little  son,  he  did  not  come.  With  a  heart 
like  ice  and  lead,  I  stared  for  an  eternity  along 
the  road;  then  I  turned  and  looked  at  the 
clock.  It  was  twenty-five  minutes  to  seven. 
Then  it  came  upon  me  that  something  had 
happened.  He  might  have  missed  the  first 
train  by  a  few  minutes,  and  have  had  to  wait 
for  the  next;  but  he  would  never  have  missed 
the  next  without  wiring  when  he  knew  I  was 
expecting  him.  I  sat  still,  fear  for  him  and  the 
sense  of  my  own  helplessness  holding  me 
paralysed.  I  could  do  nothing.  I  did  not 
know  where  he  was.  And  I  had  let  him  go 
away  in  the  morning  with  scarcely  a  word  of 
good-bye,  tacitly  holding  him  guilty  for  that 
which  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  an  or- 
dinary mischance  of  which  he  was  as  much 
59 


Letters  to  My  Son 

the  victim  as  I,  although  I,  not  being  as  fit 
physically  as  he,  might  suffer  through  it  most. 
And  what  was  it  really,  compared  with  what 
threatened  ? — A  spoilt  day  that  might  easily 
be  redeemed  to-morrow. 

If  I  could  but  know  him  to  be  safe ! 

There  was  a  step  on  the  gravel  under  the 
window,  —  a  boy's  step,  —  and  the  door- 
bell rang. 

I  held  my  breath  to  listen.  The  door 
opened,  closed,  and  the  steps  went  crunching 
over  the  gravel  again.  It  was  a  telegram.  I 
waited  impatiently  during  the  time  it  would 
take  Ellen  to  bring  it  up  the  stairs.  But  no 
one  came.  They  were  opening  it  first;  they 
were  afraid  to  bring  it  to  me.  Something  had 
happened,  and  I  was  being  kept  in  the  dark. 

I  rang  the  bell  in  a  terror.  Ellen  came. 

'Who  was  that  ?'  I  had  to  make  my  voice 
almost  a  whisper,  or  I  felt  it  would  have  been 
a  scream. 

60 


A  Misunderstanding 

'The  boy  with  the  local  paper,  ma'am/ 
she  said,  and  waited. 

'  Bring  it  to  me,  please ;  I  would  like  to  see 
it.'  I  had  to  say  something. 

She  looked  surprised,  and  went  away.  She 
knows  I  never  read  it.  When  she  had  brought 
it,  I  tore  the  wrapper  off,  and  opened  it  out, 
looking  stupidly  over  the  advertisements. 

Edward  Bingand  Sons  were  holding  an  un- 
precedented sale  of  drapery  for  one  week  only 
during  which  their  famous  make  of  ladies' 
lisle-thread  hose,  usually  sold  at  one-and- 
six-three,  would  be  sacrificed  at  one-and- 
three-three,  or  half-a-crown  for  two  pairs. 
There  was  only  a  limited  stock  of  these,  and 
intending  purchasers  were  advised  to  buy 
early. 

I  could  not  tell  my  fears  to  the  servants  yet; 
there  was  still  the  seven  train  to  come  in ;  but 
when  I  had  allowed  for  that,  Jackson  should 
go  to  the  telegraph  office. 
61 


Letters  to  My  Son 

But  whom  should  I  wire  to  ?  There  was 
only  one  person  I  knew  him  to  have  been 
with  that  day,  and  if  I  'd  remembered  what 
his  name  was  and  where  he  lived,  it  would  be 
no  use,  as  he  would  have  gone  by  this.  There 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait. 

The  clock  struck  seven.  Involuntarily  my 
eyes  turned  to  the  window.  No,  not  again.  I 
ran  to  it,  and  dragged  the  curtains  across, 
then  I  went  over  to  the  bed,  and  dropped 
down  beside  it,  covering  my  eyes  and  stop- 
ping my  ears  with  a  pillow.  I  must  shut 
away  the  sights  and  the  sounds  of  the  next 
half-hour,  or  I  should  go  mad. 

I  don't  know  how  long  afterwards  it  was, 
but  I  heard  a  sound  that  made  my  heart 
stop.  It  was  the  scrunching  of  wheels  on  the 
gravel,  and  Oliver's  voice  under  the  window. 

'That  horse  of  yours  is  a  good  traveller, 
Jarvis/ 

'He  is  that,  sorr,  and  he's  the  divil  to  go 
62 


A  Misunderstanding 

with  an  extra  sixpence  at  his  back.   Thank 
you,  sorr;  good-night/ 

Oliver  laughed.  'Good-night/  The  door 
of  the  carriage  was  slammed  to,  the  man  got 
up  on  the  box  again  and  drove  off.  Oliver 
came  into  the  house. 

And  so,  he  was  safe ;  there  was  nothing  the 
matter!  I  stood  up  straight  and  took  a  deep 
breath.  Mechanically  I  put  the  pillow  back 
in  its  place,  trying  to  think  out  things  while  I 
stroked  the  crumpled  frills  slowly  and  care- 
fully. It  is  so  strange,  that,  beloved,  —  how 
you  find  yourself  in  great  mental  stress  doing 
little  unimportant  acts  with  your  hands  as  if 
your  very  life  depended  upon  the  exactitude 
of  what  you  were  doing. 

I  had  been  in  a  frenzy  of  terror  and  pain 
because  I  had  thought  that  nothing  short  of 
illness  or  accident  could  prevent  him  keeping 
his  word.  I  had  fretted  and  waited  and 

63 


Letters  to  My  Son 

longed  all  day  for  him,  alone :  he  knew  that. 
It  might  be  stupid  and  foolish  and  unreason- 
able and  childish,  but  it  was  true,  and  the 
pain  of  it  was  real  enough.  And  there  was 
excuse  enough  for  it  just  now. 

While  he  —  ?  He  had  his  reasons,  I 
suppose. 

I  heard  him  come  along  the  corridor  and 
stop  outside  the  bedroom.  I  stood  still,  at  the 
foot  of  the  bed,  —  so  still,  beloved,  that  I 
wondered  if  I  could  ever  move  again. 

*  Madge,  are  you  there  ? ' 

'Yes/ 

He  opened  the  door,  and  came  towards  me 
quickly. 

'My  darling,  have  you  been  alone  all 
day  ?  I  'm  so  sorry,  but  I  had  the  very  worst 
luck—' 

He  made  as  if  to  draw  me  to  him,  but  I  did 
not  move. 

'Yes?'  I  said  patiently.  'What  was  it?' 
64 


A  Misunderstanding 

He  looked  at  me  sharply,  but  I  kept  my 
face  in  the  shadow,  and  as  the  room  was  dim 
it  helped  me. 

'Come  over  here  and  sit  down  with  me, 
while  I  tell  you/ 

His  voice  was  very  dear  and  kind,  but 
I  had  no  ears  for  it.  I  wanted  to  know 
why. 

'No,  I  don't  think  I  '11  sit  down,'  I  said.  'I 
have  been  sitting  down  all  day,  and  I  am 
tired  of  it.  What  was  it  ? ' 

Oh,  honey,  I  was  wicked,  but  I  was  just 
dazed  with  longings  and  fears  and  imagin- 
ings, and  the  reactions  had  been  too  many.  I 
knew  if  I  had  given  way  one  second  in  my  hold 
of  myself,  I  would  have  broken  down  alto- 
gether, and  a  stupid  idiotic  pride  made  me 
vow  that  I  would  n't  do  that.  To  cry  may  be  a 
silly  thing  to  do,  but  it  would  have  shortened 
that  tragedy  by  some  hours,  because  if  I  had 
cried  your  father  would  have  forgotten  every- 

65 


Letters  to  My  Son 

thing  and  put  his  arms  round  me;  and  if  he 
had  once  done  that  the  end  would  n't  have 
been  so  very  far  off. 

He  just  looked  at  me,  and  then  looked 
away  again  quickly,  but  not  so  quickly  that  I 
did  not  see  the  pain  I  had  given  him. 

'It's  not  so  easy  to  tell  you  when  you  ask 
like  that/  he  said  quietly;  'but  I  will  try.  We 
could  not  get  the  business  settled  in  time  for 
me  to  catch  the  four  o'clock  train,  and  as  I 
had  so  much  time  to  spare  for  the  next,  I 
thought  of  something  else  I  wanted  to  do, 
so  I  did  it.  I  suppose  it  must  have  taken 
longer  than  I  expected,  because  I  just  got 
to  Paddington  in  time  to  see  the  train  slip 
out  of  the  platform.  That  made  it  that  I  had 
an  hour  to  waste  on  the  station.' 

He  looked  up  at  me  again  and  waited. 

'Is  that  all?' I  asked. 

'Yes,  that  is  all/ 

He  got  up  and  went  to  the  window,  put- 
66 


A  Misunderstanding 

ting  back  one  of  die  curtains  and  staring  out 
into  the  garden. 

'  It  does  n't  seem  quite  enough/  I  said  at 
last,  'for  the  time  I  have  put  in  at  this  end, 
waiting  for  you  — ' 

'I  know,  and  I  am  sorry,'  he  interrupted 
eagerly,  turning  from  the  window  to  face  me ; 
'but  it  was  that  second  thing  that  landed 
me.  If  I  had  n't  been  so  interested  in  what 
I  was  doing  I  would  n't  have  missed  the  other 
train.  Margie  dear,  let  me  tell  you  — ' 

He  moved  impulsively  towards  me. 

'Don't  you  think,'  I  said,  going  over  to  the 
dressing-table  and  taking  up  some  stupid  box 
thing,  that  I  might  seem  busy,  'don't  you 
think  that,  considering  everything,  the  other 
piece  of  business  you  speak  of  might  have 
waited  till  you  went  to  town  again  ?  Was  it 
of  so  very  much  importance  ? ' 

I  spoke  very  slowly  and  preciously,  be- 
loved, because  I  had  to  make  a  tremendous 
67 


Letters  to  My  Son 

effort  to  keep  my  voice  quiet  and  unbroken. 
The  reasons  seemed  such  small  ones,  such 
paltry  ones ;  and  that  he  could  consider  them 
worth  the  offering  nearly  choked  me. 

He  laughed,  rather  forlornly  I  know  now, 
but  then  it  only  seemed  carelessly,  and  it 
made  me  go  wild  again.  '  I  thought  it  was  at 
the  time,'  he  said,  *  but  it  does  n't  seem  so 
now.'  He  looked  at  me  again,  and  waited; 
then  he  took  his  watch  out  quickly.  '  It 's  get- 
ting time  to  dress,'  he  said.  '  I  had  better  go.' 

When  I  was  by  myself  again,  I  dropped 
into  a  chair  and  tried  to  gather  myself  to- 
gether before  dinner  came.  There  was  a 
very  clever  gentleman  once,  who  said, 

'  To  be  wroth  with  one  we  love 
Doth  work  like  madness  in  the  brain'; 

and  it  is  true,  every  word  and  every  letter  of  it. 
I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  beaten  all  over,  and  my 
heart  was  aching  and  heavy  as  a  stone.  Oli- 
ver's reasons  made  me  feel  lonelier  than  ever. 
68 


A  Misunderstanding 

We  talked  at  dinner  about  all  sorts  of 
stupid  things,  like  crops  and  billiard-breaks 
and  Armenian  massacres,  and  then  we  went 
into  the  drawing-room,  and  Oliver  read  while 
I  worked  till  ten  o'clock.  Once  he  said, 
rather  anxiously,  '  You  look  very  dark  round 
your  eyes,  Madge.  Do  you  feel  all  right,  or 
shall  I  ask  Maxwell  to  call?'  And  I  said, 
'Oh,  no;  I  am  all  right,  thank  you';  and  he 
went  on  reading. 

When  ten  o'clock  struck  I  got  up. 

'I  think  I  will  go  to  bed  now,'  I  said  (for 
indeed,  I  was  very  weary,  honey). 

He  went  to  the  door  and  stood  holding  it 
open  for  me  to  pass. 

'You  look  very  tired,'  he  said  kindly. 
'Perhaps  you  would  rather  have  your  room 
to  yourself  to-night  ?  I  will  go  to  the  dressing- 
room.' 

And  the  devil,  before  he  finally  went  off 
duty  for  the  day,  gave  one  last  whisper  in 
69 


Letters  to  My  Son 

the  ear  of  my  heart.  He  said,  'That  husband 
of  yours  has  had  just  about  enough  of  your 
tantrums,  my  fine  lady,  and  he's  going  to 
see  that  he  gets  no  more  to-night.  Think  that 
well  over  while  you  are  lying  awake/  Then 
he  left  me. 

'Perhaps  it  would  be  better,'  I  said. 
'Thank  you,  Oliver,  and  good-night.' 

'Good-night,  dear,'  he  said,  'and  sleep 
well/ 

But  although  there  was  a  lingering  sound 
in  his  voice,  he  did  n't  attempt  to  kiss  me, 
and  I  went  slowly  up  to  bed,  feeling  just  as 
I  told  you  in  another  letter  you  would  feel 
sometimes  —  as  if  the  end  had  come  to 
everything.  Nobody  wanted  me.  There  was 
no  one  to  blame  for  it  but  myself,  and  not  one 
person  could  help  me  in  all  the  world. 

As  1  undressed  myself,  the  tears  kept  drop- 
ping on  my  hands  and  down  the  front  of  my 
frock;  and  my  eyes  got  so  blurred  that  I  could 
70 


A  Misunderstanding 

hardly  find  the  buttons  and  the  hooks.  And 
as  soon  as  I  was  ready  I  turned  out  the  light 
and  crept  into  bed  in  the  dark.  Beloved,  per- 
haps you  've  never  in  all  your  life  felt  more 
desolate  than  I  did  then. 

When  I  was  in  bed,  Ellen  came  and 
knocked,  to  know  if  there  was  anything  she 
could  do  for  me.  But  I  said, '  No,  thank  you/ 
and  she  went  away  down  the  corridor.  And  I 
knew  somehow,  that  Oliver  had  sent  her, 
and  that  I  need  not  expect  him  now  (as  I  had, 
at  the  back  of  my  mind,  beloved,  even  though 
I  had  n't  admitted  it)  to  come  in  unex- 
pectedly; and  I  just  turned  my  face  to  the 
pillow  and  wondered  why  such  a  worthless 
person  as  I  must  have  been  from  the  first, 
should  ever  have  been  allowed  to  grow  up. 

Then,  after  a  long  time,  I  heard  Oliver 
come  up,  and  as  he  passed  my  door  it  seemed 
as  if  he  paused  a  moment;  but  he  went  on, 
and  presently  I  saw  the  light  shining  through 


Letters  to  My  Son 

the  crack  of  the  door  that  opens  into  the  bed- 
room, and  I  heard  him  moving  quietly  about. 
And  I  knew  he  was  being  quiet  so  that,  if  I 
were  asleep,  he  should  not  wake  me. 

It  made  me  think  of  all  the  kind  and  the 
sweet  and  the  thoughtful  things  he  is  always 
doing,  quite  simply,  as  if  they  were  only  just 
ordinary  things,  as  indeed  they  are  with  him. 
Then  I  went  back  over  the  day,  and  I  saw 
it  all  as  it  was.  If  I  had  waked  quite  well 
nothing  would  have  gone  wrong.  Of  course  I 
would  have  been  sorry  that  we  could  n't  go 
for  the  drive,  but  it  would  n't  have  been  a 
matter  of  life  and  death.  As  for  his  missing 
the  train,  it  was  just  the  stupid  kind  of  thing 
that  might  happen  to  anyone.  And  it  was  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that,  with 
half-an-hour  to  spare,  he  should  use  it  to  save 
himself  the  bother  of  a  journey  up  again.  The 
whole  thing  was  what  I  in  my  best  moments 
would  call  'a  concatenation  of  unfortunate 
72 


A  Misunderstanding 

events,*  and  you,  beloved,  'a  string  of  bad 
luck/ 

And  I  remembered,  too,  how  he  had  tried 
to  explain,  and  to  make  it  up,  and  I  would  n't 
let  him.  I  was  longing  to  all  the  while,  but 
the  very  fact  that  I  wanted  to  so  badly  seemed 
to  make  it  impossible. 

I  felt  my  heart  go  right  out  to  him,  and  I 
wondered  if  he  were  quite  comfortable  in  his 
dressing-room  and  if  he  had  everything  he 
wanted. 

Then,  suddenly,  it  came  to  me  that  he  had 
not  slept  in  that  room  for  weeks,  not  since  one 
night  when  I  had  gone  up  to  town  and  stayed 
with  Nanny  till  the  next  day.  Perhaps  he  had 
not  told  Ellen  he  was  sleeping  there,  and  the 
sheets  would  not  be  aired.  And  he  would  get 
a  chill,  and  it  would  settle  on  his  lungs,  and 
he  would  die,  and  it  would  be  my  fault !  Oh, 
I  had  n't  any  pride  left  then,  beloved.  If  he 
would  only  come  back,  I  would  n't  ask  him 
73 


Letters  to  My  Son 

to  forgive  me.    I  got  up  and  went  to  the 
door. 

He  was  standing  with  his  back  to  me.  His 
coat  was  off,  and  he  was  holding  an  old  pipe 
to  the  light  and  poking  a  wire  down  the  stem 
of  it.  When  he  saw  me,  he  put  it  down  and 
came  towards  me. 

I  ran  to  him.  'Oliver,'  I  said,  speaking 
very  fast,  *  I  don't  want  you  to  forgive  me.  I 
know  it  has  all  been  my  fault  and  it  seems  as 
if  I  had  been  so  horrid  that  I  could  n't  expect 
you  to;  but  I  have  n't  meant  to  be  bad,  and  if 
you  will  come  back  to-night  I  will  have  this 
room  made  ready  for  you  to-morrow,  and  you 
can  sleep  in  it  as  long  as  you  like.  Only  come 
back  to-night!' 

He  put  his  arms  round  me.  I  think  he 
thought  I  was  dreaming. 

*  What  is  it,  Margie  ? '  he  said,  sitting  down 
and  drawing  me  on  to  his  knee.  'Tell  me  all 
about  it.' 

74 


A  Misunderstanding 

'The  sheets  aren't  aired!'  I  said  with  a 
sob;  it  was  so  lovely  to  hear  his  voice  again. 

He  looked  puzzled ;  then  a  light  seemed  to 
break  upon  him. 

'  Do  you  mean  on  this  bed  ?  * 

I  nodded.  'Yes.  You  did  n't  tell  Ellen  you 
were  going  to  use  it,  did  you  ? ' 

He  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed  over 
and  over  again. 

'Do  you  know,'  he  said  at  last,  'I  thought 
you  were  dreaming.  I  could  n't  make  out 
what  you  were  driving  at.'  He  laughed  again. 
'  You  poor  old  thing !  You  were  afraid  I  was 
going  to  be  hurt,  were  you  ? ' 

I  put  my  cheek  to  his ;  the  very  sound  of  his 
voice,  and  the  feeling  that  I  was  safe  again, 
made  the  sobs  come  into  my  throat,  so  that  I 
could  n't  speak. 

'And  rather  than  that,  you  would  take  me 
back  again,  eh  ? '  He  rubbed  his  face  against 
mine  softly. 

75 


Letters  to  My  Son 

The  tears  were  pouring  down  my  cheeks 
and  running  on  to  his  own,  but  he  did  n't 
seem  to  mind. 

'You  wanted  to  be  here/  I  said  when  I 
could  speak. 

'Little  stupid!'  he  said  tenderly.  'I  only 
wanted  what  was  best  for  you.  You  looked 
such  a  poor  tired  thing,  that  I  thought  you 
might  rest  better  so.  Now  lie  still,  and  tell 
me  why  you  were  so  angry  with  me  ? ' 

He  pulled  a  rug  from  the  bed  and  covered 
me  up  with  it.  And  I  told  him  everything 
from  beginning  to  end.  About  feeling  ill 
when  I  woke,  and  Nanny  and  the  lace  and 
the  splashy  egg.  And  then  the  great  disap- 
pointment of  not  going  for  the  drive,  and 
being  sorry  when  he  had  gone  that  I  had 
shown  it  so,  and  making  up  my  mind  to  let 
him  know,  and  his  never  coming.  And  how 
I  had  gone  up  into  the  bedroom  and  watched 
and  listened,  and  when  he  did  n't  come  by 


A  Misunderstanding 

the  second  train  how  I  had  nearly  gone  mad 
with  fear  lest  anything  should  have  happened 
to  him;  and  how  I  had  wanted  to  telegraph, 
and  did  n't  know  any  one  to  telegraph  to. 
And  then  how  he  had  come  in,  and  the  only 
reason  he  gave  was  that  he  had  stayed  to  do 
something  else,  and  that  had  made  him  miss 
the  second  train,  and  when  I  asked  if  the 
thing  he  had  waited  for  was  of  so  very  much 
importance,  he  had  laughed  and  said  p'raps 
it  was  n't,  and  I  had  felt  I  wanted  to  die. 

All  the  while  I  was  telling  him,  he  was 
scanning  my  face  very  gravely,  and  once  he 
said,  as  if  to  himself,  'A  man  does  n't  under- 
stand; a  man  doesn't  understand.'  Then, 
when  I  had  finished,  he  said,  still  very 
gravely,  'Poor  little  thing!'  (I'm  not  little, 
honey,  and  that's  why  it's  so  nice)  'you 
shan't  be  left  again,  unless  you  have  Nanny 
or  some  one  with  you.' 

And  I  said  very  quickly,  'Indeed,  I  shall, 
77 


Letters  to  My  Son 

Oliver.  I'm  not  going  to  have  you  think 
you  've  got  to  stay  at  home  to  mind  me.  You 
would  get  to  hate  me  then ! ' 

And  he  laughed,  and  kissed  me  as  if  he 
had  n't  begun  to  yet,  and  I  just  lay  back  and 
felt  sorry  for  every  one  who  was  n't  me. 

After  a  while,  he  put  his  ringers  into  his 
vest  pocket  and  pulled  something  out.  I  sat 
up,  and  looked  to  see  what  it  was. 

It  was  a  small,  flat,  velvet  case,  and  when 
he  opened  it  I  saw  a  little  pendant  of  emer- 
alds set  in  diamonds  and  platinum  and 
threaded  by  a  thin  platinum  chain. 

'  Oh ! '  I  said, '  how  lovely ! '  Then  suddenly 
I  felt  myself  go  crimson. 

'That  was  not  what  made  you  miss  — '  I 
could  n't  go  on. 

His  eyes  twinkled,  and  he  nodded. 

I  turned  away  from  it  and  hid  my  face 
against  him.  I  felt  too  ashamed  and  too  small 
to  be  able  to  look  at  it  again.  And  whenever 


A  Misunderstanding 

1  feel  my  senses  are  on  the  point  of  leaving 
me,  beloved,  I  shall  just  take  out  the  little 
pendant  and  look  at  it  steadily,  and  if  it 
does  n't  set  me  right  in  a  trice,  I  shall  know  I 
am  past  all  human  aid. 

He  tried  to  make  me  look  at  it,  but  I 
could  n't,  then,  so  he  laughed  at  me  and  put 
it  back  into  his  pocket. 

But  when  he  had  carried  me  back  to  bed, 
and  was  in  his  dressing-room  again,  I  called 
to  him  and  said, '  Bring  it  back  with  you  when 
you  come,  please,  Oliver;  I  would  like  to 
have  it  beside  me.'  And  he  brought  it  back 
and  put  it  down  on  the  table;  and  I  touched 
his  hand  very  respectfully  and  said,  '  I  think 
you  are  just  the  most  beautiful  thing  that  ever 
was,  inside  and  out/ 

And  he  bent  over  me,  and  kissed  me  hard 
and  quickly,  and  said,  'And  you  are  the 
greatest  stupid!'  Which  won't  read  as  ex- 
quisite as  it  sounded. 

79 


Letters  to  My  Son 

This  letter  may  seem  only  the  story  of  a 
cross-tempered  woman  and  a  fine-hearted 
man  when  you  read  it  first,  beloved,  but  as 
you  get  older  you  will  find  there  is  more  in  it 
than  that.  It  will  tell  you  that  the  face  value 
of  a  thing  is  sometimes  a  false  value,  and  that 
the  same  thing  will  be  honestly  and  totally 
dissimilar  looked  at  by  two  people  from  dif- 
ferent points  of  view.  Those  may  be  obvious 
and  well-worn  truths,  but  it  is  perhaps  just  as 
well  to  have  a  human  application  of  those 
truths,  so  that,  when  one's  own  time  comes, 
one  may  have  just  a  glimmer  of  what  may  be 
to  distract  from  the  blaze  of  what  appears  to 
be. 

And  it  will  tell  you  that  love  —  of  which 
some  quaint  people  deny  the  existence  —  has 
got  to  be  great  enough  not  for  the  big  things 
but  for  the  small  things.  When  I  thought 
that  Oliver  was  in  danger,  I  was  ready  to  go 
barefoot  over  hot  ploughshares  to  get  to  him; 
80 


A  Misunderstanding 

but  when  it  came  to  giving  him  the  benefit 
of  the  doubt  over  the  catching  or  the  losing 
of  a  train,  I  was  wanting.  It 's  no  good  talking 
about  the  greatness  of  a  thing  unless  you 
are  able  to  apply  it;  and  what  so  often  gets 
love  into  disrepute  is  the  fact  that  when  it 
is  put  to  small  everyday  uses,  it  fails,  not  be- 
cause it  is  n't  a  good  thing  for  the  purpose, 
but  because  either  the  people  who  use  it 
have  n't  enough  of  it,  or  else  they  don't  know 
what  to  do  with  it  when  they  do  get  it. 

But  I  think  we  '11  talk  about  that  another 
day,  honey.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  a  lot  to  say  upon 
the  subject. 

And  going  back  to  the  history  of  my  bad 
behaviour,  you  've  got  to  make  a  little  excuse 
for  me  because  you  were  just  a  bit  to  blame 
yourself.  Only  don't  worry  about  that. 


V 

On  Fathers  and 
Mothers 


V 

On  Fathers  and 
Mothers 


I  WONDER,  if  all  the  little  honeys  and 
belovedests  that  get  born  into  the  world, 
and  grow  up  to  look  upon  their  fathers  and 
mothers  as  people  to  whom  they  go  for  their 
pocket-money  and  their  wiggings,  were  sud- 
denly to  see  into  the  hearts  of  those  fathers 
and  mothers,  whether  they  would  ride  rough- 
shod over  them  for  ever  and  ever  and  ever, 
or  whether  they  would  draw  a  long  breath  of 
relief  and  be  very,  very  glad. 

I  know  it  is  in  the  minds  of  children  to 

believe  that  fathers   and  mothers   are  born 

fathers  and  mothers,  and  never  could  have 

been  young  or  stupid  or  unregenerate  like 

85 


Letters  to  My  Son 

themselves;  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
they  so  often  go  to  any  one  rather  than  to  their 
parents  with  whatever  scrapes  they  may  be 
in.  And  it's  true,  honey,  that  the  parents 
have  themselves  to  blame  for  such  neglect. 
They  are  so  anxious  to  set  a  good  example 
that  they  deliberately  forget  their  own  ex- 
periences and  seem  to  think  that  they  can 
keep  you  from  having  measles  by  pretending 
that  they  never  had  them  themselves. 

Now  it  is  very  highly  probable  that  every 
parent  worth  his  salt  has  had  pretty  nearly 
every  measle  that  is  likely  to  dog  the  foot- 
steps of  his  graceless  offspring  (when  you  are 
old  enough,  you  will  appreciate  the  beauty  of 
that  phrasing),  and  it  is  his  duty  —  and  ought 
to  be  his  pleasure  —  to  admit  it,  not  with 
vain  boasting,  but  simply,  in  order  that,  if 
the  need  arises,  he  with  his  experience,  may 
show  the  way  through;  for  there  is  a  way 
through,  my  son,  even  though  it  is  nothing 
86 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

better  than  sitting  down  at  the  foot  of  the 
blank  wall  and  waiting.  I  who  speak  to  you 
have  waited,  and  I  know. 

I  want  you  once  and  for  always  to  get  it 
out  of  your  dear  little  head  that  Oliver  and  I 
are  Grown-ups  with  a  capital  G,  and  there- 
fore incapable  of  understanding  the  joys  and 
pleasures  and  pains  that  belong  to  you  as  a 
child  and  a  boy.  Oh,  beloved,  we  are  n't 
really  old,  although  Oliver  rides  a  horse  with- 
out a  groom  at  his  bridle,  and  I  have  n't  worn 
pinafores  for  quite  a  long  time.  But  our 
hearts  ride  their  ponies  and  tear  their  pina- 
fores just  the  same  as  ever,  believe  that. 

And  I  '11  tell  you  a  secret.  It 's  a  shameful 
secret  for  a  woman  with  a  grey  hair  (I  got  it 
when  I  was  twenty  —  the  hair,  beloved) ;  and 
although  Oliver  knows  it,  —  and  I  dare  say 
one  or  two  others  do,  as  well,  —  I  try  to  keep 
it  from  spreading  any  further  than  I  can  help. 
Still,  if  we  ever  meet,  you  are  bound  to  find  it 
87 


Letters  to  My  Son 

out;  and  if  we  don't,  perhaps  it  will  help  you 
to  overcome  your  own  weaknesses  to  know 
that  your  own  grown-up  mummy  was  every 
bit  as  bad  as  you  and  badder. 

It's  this,  come  very  close  and  bend  down 
while  I  tell  you.  Nothing  ever  really  teaches 
me,  and  I  've  never  really  grown  up.  To-day, 
with  that  grey  hair  in  my  head  that  I  got  at 
twenty,  and  a  man-child  of  my  own  to  be 
thinking  of,  I  'm  just  as  much  in  the  school- 
room as  I  was  at  ten.  Perhaps  from  it  all  I 
have  got  this  one  bit  of  knowledge,  that  when 
I  can  see  no  way  out  I  sit  down  at  the  foot  of 
the  wall  and  wait.  But  for  the  rest  my  lessons 
are  just  as  hard  to  learn  and  give  me  just  as 
much  pain  and  tribulation  as  they  did  when 
I  was  doing  nine-times-seven,  and  thirteen 
goes-into-a-hundred-and-four-I-don't-know- 
how-many-times-or-what-over. 

So,  you  see,  with  a  record  like  that  it 
would  n't  be  the  least  bit  of  use  me  climbing 
88 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

on  to  a  pedestal,  and  trying  to  play  the  oracle, 
because  I  have  no  capacity  for  giddy  heights 
at  all.  Give  me  the  ground  under  my  feet,  and 
the  top  of  the  mountain  is  mine  for  the  climb- 
ing; but  stand  me  on  a  rampart,  and  I  shut 
my  eyes  and  clutch  till  somebody  comes  and 
takes  me  off.  But  if  you  don't  mind  I  '11  give 
you  the  benefit  of  my  experience  (you  '11  let 
me  do  that,  please,  beloved),  and  then  we  '11 
take  hands  and  climb  the  mountain  together. 

And  I  want  to  tell  you  a  little  about  this 
father  of  yours.  He 's  down  in  the  garden 
tying  up  carnations  at  this  minute,  and  I  can 
see  his  broad  shoulders  bent  over  the  flowers 
and  his  nice  brown  hands  twisting  the  twine. 
A  little  while  ago  he  looked  up  and  saw  me  in 
the  window  and  he  called  out :  — 

'  What  are  you  doing  up  there  ?  Come 
down.' 

'I  can't,'  I  said.  'I'm  writing/ 

'Who  to?' 

89 


Letters  to  My  Son 

'To  a  young  man  in  whom  I  take  a  great 
deal  of  interest.  I  'm  sorry  I  can't  tell  you 
more/ 

'All  right.  I  '11  come  up  and  see  if  it  ought 
to  go/ 

He  was  filling  his  pipe  very  carefully  and 
watching  it  as  he  did  it. 

'Indeed,  you'll  stay  where  you  are,  and 
I  '11  come  down  when  I  'm  ready.' 

I  blew  him  a  kiss  and  came  back  to  you. 
Oh,  beloved,  I  think  you  will  like  him  most 
awfully. 

Now,  if  you  're  in  a  tangle  over  anything  to 
do  with  dogmas  and  doxies  (I  won't  give  you 
the  dictionary  meaning  of  these  words  be- 
cause it  would  be  a  waste  of  labour;  when 
the  time  comes  for  you  to  know,  you  will  find 
out  quickly  enough),  I  'm  afraid  it  won't  be 
much  use  going  to  Oliver  for  explanation, 
because  the  darling  does  n't  know  anything 
about  them.  But  if  you  want  to  know  what  it 
90 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

is  to  live  finely,  cleanly,  courageously,  watch 
him,  my  son,  and  see  him  do  it.  When  I 
think  of  him  and  his  way,  it  puts  me  in  mind 
of  an  algebra  mistress  I  had  when  I  was  a 
child.  She  could  do  algebra  and  Euclid 
standing  on  her  head  and  with  her  hands  tied 
behind  her  back,  so  to  speak,  but  she  had  n't 
an  idea  of  telling  you  how  to  do  it.  I  could  n't 
do  it  anyhow.  I  used  to  say  despairingly, 
'  How  do  I  do  it  ? '  and  quite  simply  she  would 
say,  '  This  way ' ;  and  it  would  be  done  in  a 
twinkling. 

Then  I  would  say,  'Yes,  but  how  did  you 
do  that  ? '  and  she  would  say  again,  this  time 
with  bewilderment,  'This  way!'  and  pff! 
there  it  was,  like  a  magic-lantern  slide,  and 
I  as  far  off  as  ever. 

This  Oliver  of  ours,  beloved,  is  just  as  good 
at  his  job  as  she  was  at  hers,  and  just  as  un- 
able to  tell  you  how  he  does  it.  But  you 
need  n't  get  the  idea  into  your  head  that  there 


Letters  to  My  Son 

is  any  icy  perfection  about  him.  He  does  n't 
know  he 's  good,  and  if  I  were  openly  to  ac- 
cuse him  of  the  things  I  have  been  telling 
you,  he  would  be  as  uncomfortable  as  a 
cannibal  in  a  court  suit.  I  can  imagine  him 
now,  listening  first  in  astonishment,  then  in 
embarrassment,  and  at  last,  very  red,  getting 
up  and  feeling  in  his  pockets  for  his  pipe  and 
saying  with  an  uneasy  laugh :  — 

'Don't  rot  so,  Margie;  where  are  the 
matches  ? ' 

But  that  unconsciousness  does  not  mean 
that  he  cannot  feel  things.  I  know  how 
deeply  he  feels,  and  how  much  easier  it  might 
have  been  sometimes  if  he  had  been  able  to 
express  with  his  lips  what  was  stirring  and 
agitating  in  his  heart.  There  are  people  who 
cannot  speak  because  they  have  nothing  to 
say,  and  there  are  others  who  cannot  speak 
because  they  have  too  much;  and  often  one 
sees  people  being  credited  with  a  reserve 
92 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

which  is  really  no  reserve  at  all,  but  a  lack  of 
feeling,  while  others  are  called  shallow  be- 
cause their  feelings  are  greater  than  their 
power  of  concealment.  One  learns  all  that  in 
time.  With  Oliver  it  is  an  inability  to  formu- 
late, to  express.  When  he  is  happy  one  feels 
the  sunshine  radiating  from  him ;  when  he  is 
unhappy  his  eyes  tell  you,  but  he  himself  is 
dumb. 

At  first  I  used  to  feel  'held  off'  by  his  si- 
lence. I  did  n't  understand,  and  it  seemed  as 
if  he  were  deliberately  closing  a  door  upon 
me :  but  once  in  a  moment  of  perhaps  more 
than  ordinary  clear-sightedness,  I  said  some- 
thing that  caused  him  to  turn  to  me  with  a 
look  of  sharp  relief  on  his  face.  Afterwards 
he  said  with  admiration  lighting  his  eyes, 
*  You 're  a  wonderful  thing,  Margie,  you  al- 
ways say  what  every  one  else  only  seems  to  be 
able  to  think';  and  I  was  glad,  because  it 
made  him  come  to  me  instinctively  as  to  one 
93 


Letters  to  My  Son 

who  would  understand  his  unspoken  thoughts. 
But  it  made  me  feel  humble  enough,  be- 
loved. He  in  his  strong  simple  inarticulate- 
ness seemed  like  a  huge  hill  upon  which  I,  a 
little  conning  tower,  stood  perched  in  my 
glibness.  I  have  laughed,  oh,  so  many  times, 
at  his  pride  in  my  wonderfulness ;  for  he  was 
like  a  giant  setting  a  child  on  his  shoulders 
and  calling  the  child  a  greater  than  himself. 
And  the  thing  that  always  makes  me  laugh 
with  a  lump  in  my  throat  is  that  this  giant 
really  believes  it. 

So  you  see,  if  you  listen  to  your  mummy 
and  watch  your  father,  you  stand  a  very  good 
chance  of  being  all  that  a  perfect  creature 
ought  to  be;  but  being  the  son  of  your  father 
and  mother,  I  'm  thinking  you  '11  have  to  find 
your  own  way  your  own  self,  and  you  won't 
reach  perfection  through  merely  seeing  it  and 
hearing  about  it.  Still,  you  won't  despise  a 
lantern  on  a  dark  night,  will  you  ? 
94 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

And  let  me  tell  you,  for  the  breaking  down 
of  that  barrier  which  rises  up  so  often  between 
parents  and  children,  who,  in  spite  of  it,  love 
each  other  very  truly, — that  parents  are 
often  as  shy  of  their  children  as  their  children 
are  of  them;  often  as  diffident  in  asking  their 
confidence  as  they  are  of  tendering  it;  often 
as  longing  to  receive  it  as  they  are  to  give  it. 
It  is  too  much  and  not  too  little  feeling  that 
has  built  up  that  barrier;  but  I  believe,  honey, 
that  as  the  world  grows  older  we  will  grow 
wiser  and  less  self-conscious  about  the  things 
that  matter.  Science  is  helping  towards  that, 
by  finding  simple  natural  reasons  for  things 
that  were  at  one  time  regarded  as  visitations 
of  God  or  the  devil.  We  do  not  so  often  con- 
fuse innocence  with  ignorance  and  call  it 
beauty  as  we  once  used  to  do.  We  are  learn- 
ing to  look  at  life  more  truly,  and  although  it 
means  the  sweeping  away  of  a  great  many 
things  that  were  once  thought  to  be  beautiful, 
95 


Letters  to  My  Son 

it  means  that  we  are  finding  there  is  nothing 
really  beautiful  that  is  not  built  upon  truth, 
and  that  the  plainest  truth  is  beautiful  be- 
cause it  is  a  truth. 

It  is  true  that  parents,  who  are  but  children 
of  a  larger  growth,  must  for  the  benefit  of  the 
young  thing  exact  obedience  till  the  time  for 
explanation  comes.  But  they  have  no  right 
to  retard  the  moment  of  explanation  beyond 
its  appointed  time.  It  is  a  beautiful  desire,  to 
want  to  shield  and  protect  the  thing  one  loves, 
but  it  ceases  to  be  beautiful,  and  becomes  un- 
true, when,  instead  of  protecting,  they  would 
wilfully  blind,  wilfully  keep  in  the  dark. 

When  you  are  in  swaddling  clothes  and  cry 
for  the  candle-flame,  your  little  hands  will 
not  be  allowed  to  grasp  it;  later  on,  when  you 
are  able  to  understand  what  is  being  said  to 
you,  you  will  be  told  that  the  flame  will  burn 
and  hurt  you ;  but  later  still,  if  nothing  has 
convinced  you  and  you  still  weep  for  it,  you 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

shall  be  allowed  to  touch  it  and  find  out  for 
yourself.  I  myself  have  cried  for  the  candle- 
flame,  and  when  the  time  came  I  burnt  my 
fingers.  If  I  had  been  given  it  too  early  I 
should  probably  have  blamed  some  one  else 
for  the  pain  I  got;  when  it  was  kept  from  me 
longer  than  it  should  have  been,  I  broke  guard 
to  get  to  it  and  blamed  no  one,  not  even  my- 
self. 

So  it  will  be  for  you,  little  son.  The  candle 
shall  be  placed  high  on  the  shelf  till  the  time 
comes  for  you  to  choose  whether  you  will 
burn  yourself  or  keep  away;  and  with  every- 
thing freely  explained  you  shall  take  your 
chance.  But  we  would  be  untrue  to  you  and 
to  life  and  to  everything,  if  we  tried  to  bring 
you  up  in  a  dark  room  without  any  knowledge 
of  candles  at  all,  and  then  suddenly  flung 
you  out  into  a  world  that  was  dotted  all  over 
with  them.  Remembering  that,  will  you  come 
to  either  Oliver  or  me  if  you  want  to  know 
97 


Letters  to  My  Son 

anything  ?  Whatever  it  is,  however  evil  or 
dark  or  wrong  it  may  seem  to  your  under- 
standing, it  won't  matter,  because  at  the  back 
of  the  darkest  difficulty  there  generally  lies  a 
reasonable  explanation,  and  one  does  n't  live 
a  very  long  time  in  this  world  with  one's  eyes 
open  without  coming  across  most  of  what 
there  is  to  be  seen  in  it.  And  remember,  too, 
little  man,  that  Oliver  was  at  school  and  at 
college  just  as  you  will  be,  and  he  was  con- 
fronted with  just  the  same  problems  that  are 
confronting  you,  and  assailed  with  just  the 
same  temptations  that  assail  you.  And  he  is 
so  wise  and  so  kind,  this  Oliver,  who  can  build 
bridges  to  carry  people  over  but  cannot  tell  you 
how  he  built  them,  that  you  need  never  fear 
rebuff  or  misunderstanding  from  him.  Even 
if  one  had  yielded  time  and  again  to  the  temp- 
tation he  had  resisted,  he  would  have  no 
thought  of  judgment  in  his  heart.  His  only 
care  would  be  to  find  something  in  his  under- 
98 


Fathers  and  Mothers 

standing  that  would  be  of  use;  just  as  a  man 
may  search  his  pockets  to  find  the  sum  your 
necessity  demanded,  and  look  concerned  for 
fear  he  should  not  have  enough. 

And  some  day,  honey,  when  you  have  a 
troupe  of  little  honeys  all  your  own,  the 
thought  of  what  your  father  was  to  you,  will 
help  you  to  be  all  that  to  them.  We  can  pass 
on  a  lot  in  this  world  if  we  only  think  a  bit. 

I  do  love  you  very  much,  my  little  thing. 


VI 

On  Anger 


There  are  two  letters  that  I've  put  together 
into  one  envelope,  the  ones  on  Anger  and  Religion. 
If  you  find  them  rather  dull,  a  bit  pi-jawish  in 
your  manner  of  speaking,  just  put  them  back  in 
the  envelope  and  don't  bother  about  them  any 
more.  They  are  n't  pi-jaw,  they  are  my  mind 
going  out  to  meet  your  mind  in  its  extremity,  and 
if  they  don't  strike  you  that  way,  it's  because 
your  extremity  is  n't  there  and  you  have  n't  any 
need  of  them. 

But  fo'  de  Lawd's  sake,  honey,  don't  you  tear 
your  mummy  up,  she'll  come  in  useful  one  of 
these  days  if  you  only  keep  her  long  enough,  be- 
lieve me. 


VI 

On  Anger 


THIS  morning  as  I  sat  working  I  was 
thinking  about  anger  and  all  things  to 
do  with  it.  There  was  a  famous  man  once  who 
said  that  no  man  was  great  who  was  not  vin- 
dictive. It  worried  me  rather  that  such  a  fine 
person  as  he  should  have  believed  such  an 
un-fine  thing,  and  it  troubled  me  more  when 
I  sat  down  to  think  it  out  and  saw  how  true 
it  looked  on  the  face  of  it. 

I  went  back  through  my  own  life,  and 
knew  how,  over  and  over  again,  I  had  lost  the 
situation  because  pain  and  not  rage  had  been 
the  feeling  uppermost;  not  the  kind  of  pain 
that  wants  to  turn  and  rend,  but  the  pain  that 
103 


Letters  to  My  Son 

makes  one  cover  one's  eyes  and  run  out  into 
the  darkness,  —  anywhere,  —  to  be  out  of 
sight  and  sound  of  that  which  has  caused 
the  hurt;  for  to  fight  with  that  pain  blinding 
your  eyes  and  that  desolation  bewildering 
your  brain  was  impossible.  One  could  only 
turn  and  hide  like  a  sick  animal  in  the 
thicket. 

But  with  the  reaction  would  come  a  feeling 
of  passionate  anger.  I  had  been  in  the  right 
yet  I  had  been  routed.  I  was  the  one  who  had 
been  despoiled,  yet  I  had  fled  like  a  thief. 
Where  was  the  justice  of  it  all  ?  Why  was  I 
allowed  the  strength  to  fight  and  win  in  all 
the  skirmishes  that  did  n't  matter  a  jot,  and 
denied  it  in  my  Armageddon  ?  A  coat  of  mail 
was  given  to  me  with  which  to  protect  my- 
self from  the  snapping  of  a  finger,  and  torn 
off  as  the  arrows  rained  down.  I  would  go 
back  and  fight  the  battle  over  again.  Might 
was  not  right,  the  just  should  triumph,  the 
104 


On  Anger 


unjust  should  be  made  to  see  his  injustice.  I 
trembled  with  the  thought  of  all  that  I  would 
do. 

Then,  as  in  imagination  I  strode  back, 
head  up,  eyes  shining,  and  breast  out,  to  the 
battle-ground,  the  remembrance  of  what  had 
happened  came  over  me.  The  pain  clutched 
my  heart  afresh  and  closed  my  eyes,  the  futil- 
ity of  things  dragged  at  my  heels,  and  I  crept 
back  into  the  darkness  again,  glad  to  be  no- 
thing. 

In  the  darkness  I  cursed  myself  for  a  poor 
thing  and  a  coward.  I  compared  myself  with 
one  I  knew,  and  wished  to  God  I  were  like 
her.  I  saw  her  in  her  battles  always  victorious, 
always  triumphant.  I  saw  her  stand  insolent 
and  smiling,  giving  back  twice  over  taunt  for 
taunt,  insult  for  insult,  scorn  for  scorn ;  and  I 
saw  her  at  the  end  bitter  but  unbeaten  with 
high  heart  rejoicing  in  her  victory.  She  would 
never  forget,  she  would  never  forgive,  and 
105 


Letters  to  My  Son 

her  hatred  of  her  enemy  would  grow  stronger 
and  surer  as  time  went  on. 

To  me,  then,  she  seemed  a  great  and  envi- 
able person,  for  at  least  she  could  always 
count  upon  the  fear  and  the  respect  of  her 
enemies ;  while  I,  with  my  miserable  puling 
sensitiveness,  had  not  a  rag  to  cover  myself 
with.  The  thicket  was  no  blacker  than  my 
heart,  choked  as  it  was  with  rage  and  pain 
and  humiliation. 

But,  once,  little  son,  as  I  lay  face  down- 
ward in  the  dark,  there  came  the  sound  of  a 
bird  singing.  It  was  singing  in  the  branch  of 
a  tree  far  down  the  coppice,  and  I  sat  up  and 
listened.  It  sang  a  few  notes,  then  it  stopped. 
I  waited,  and  as  I  listened  for  the  bird  I 
heard  the  sound  of  running  water. 

The  bird  began  again,  very  softly  and  only 

a  few  notes  at  a  time.  Then  at  last  it  went  off 

into  a  pure  clear  exquisite  song,  so  full,  that 

it  seemed  as  if  the  little  trembling  throat 

106 


On  Anger 


would  burst.  It  sang  all  the  joy  and  the  grati- 
tude and  the  freshness  that  ever  was  in  the 
world ;  and  as  it  sang,  the  heart  and  mind  of 
me  grew  still  and  quiet.  I  seemed  to  under- 
stand then,  beloved,  —  even  though  I  forgot 
it  many  times  afterwards,  —  that  while  it 
might  not  be  given  to  me  to  win  in  a  pitched 
battle,  yet  it  was  open  to  me  to  give  the  lie  to 
my  failures  by  living  as  truly  as  I  could  every 
day;  and  I  knew,  too,  that  so  long  as  neither 
hatred  nor  malice  took  real  root  in  my  heart,  so 
long  would  I  be  allowed  to  hear  the  running 
water  and  the  song  of  the  bird  and  be  com- 
forted by  them.  It  is  a  finer  strength  we  ga- 
ther from  that  than  from  any  stimulant  brewed 
from  the  poison  of  malice,  and  it  is  a  tonic 
that  gains  and  not  loses  with  every  dose  we 
take. 

Perhaps  this  will  be  a  little  puzzling  to  you 
if  you  read  it  when  you  are  a  very  young 
thing;  but  what  I  have  wanted  to  say  to  you 
107 


Letters  to  My  Son 

is  that  the  great  man  was  wrong  when  he 
called  vindictiveness  strength.  It  is  strength, 
just  as  a  crutch  is  strength,  but  you  must 
learn  to  be  strong  enough  to  walk  without 
crutches,  and  as  a  crutch  would  in  reality 
hamper  and  retard  the  perfect  man  physi- 
cally, so  vindictiveness  would  do  the  same 
mentally  by  poisoning  and  corroding  all  the 
fine  things  that  were  in  him. 

Anger,  righteous  anger,  is  a  fine  thing,  and 
it  is  right  to  feel  it.  Like  a  fire  it  cleanses  and 
purifies,  but  like  a  fire  it  makes  a  better  ser- 
vant than  master,  and  you  must  learn  to 
order  it  instead  of  letting  it  order  you. 

If  ever  you  are  in  such  a  passion  that  you 
feel  you  are  going  to  blow  up  right  away,  I 
should  advise  you  —  provided  you  know  how 
to  keep  your  hands  in  your  pockets  —  to  let 
it  go,  because  such  a  volcano  is  better  out 
than  in.  But  prefer  to  let  it  run  out  of  your 
heels  rather  than  your  mouth  or  your  fists. 
108 


On  Anger 


Walk,  my  son,  walk  as  if  the  devil  were 
driving  you  —  as  perhaps  indeed  he  may  be ; 
and  if  you  are  not  better  when  you  come  in, 
go  straight  to  your  father  and  ask  him  to  take 
you  to  the  doctor. 

There  is  one  thing,  apart  from  any  jesting, 
that  I  want  you  always  to  remember.  What- 
ever your  disturbances  of  mind,  whatever 
your  perplexity,  your  pain  may  be,  go  out 
to  do  battle  with  it.  What  I  told  you  about 
the  running  water  and  the  song  of  the  bird 
is  no  sentimental  picture,  but  a  simple  truth. 
There  is  something  in  the  wind  that  cleanses, 
something  in  the  very  touch  of  the  earth 
under  your  feet  that  revivifies  and  makes 
strong  again ;  and  you  never  once  go  to  nature 
in  your  unconscious  years  that  she  does  not 
return  the  visit  in  the  years  of  your  under- 
standing and  know  you  again  for  the  child 
that  needed  her. 

Perhaps,  littlest,  I  seem  to  be  talking  in 
109 


Letters  to  My  Son 

riddles  again.  Never  mind,  you  will  know 
it  all  to  be  very  simple  some  day,  and  in  the 
meantime  this  is  what  your  mother  is  strug- 
gling to  say  to  you  :  — 

If  ever  anything  happens  that  makes  you 
feel  horribly  bad,  or  even  just  bad,  inside, 
go  and  take  a  ride  on  your  pony,  or  roll  the 
lawn,  or  throw  stones  in  the  pond,  till  you 
find  things  are  getting  easier.  But  don't  ever 
brood  indoors  if  you  can  help  it. 

Of  course,  honey,  I  mean  that  as  a  medi- 
cine for  heartache ;  it  would  n't  quite  do  for 
tummy-ache;  that  will  be  Nanny's  or  my 
affair. 


VII 

On  Religion 


VII 

On  Religion 


SOME  of  the  things  I  want  to  say  to  you, 
although  not  profound,  are  a  little  diffi- 
cult to  write,  beloved.  There  was  a  singing- 
master  I  once  had  who  used  to  be  very  angry 
when  any  one  said  anything  about  upper  and 
lower  and  middle  registers  in  the  voice.  He 
said  they  were  wrong,  that  one  should  sing 
without  thought  of  breaks,  and  that  to  make 
divisions  was  simply  to  make  trouble.  When 
he  talked  I  used  to  feel  how  right  he  was,  and 
how  stupid  the  other  way  seemed :  just  like 
taking  a  whole  piece  of  cloth  and  tearing  it 
into  three  for  the  sake  of  joining  it  up  again. 
But  afterwards  I  wondered.  I  wondered 
"3 


Letters  to  My  Son 

whether  all  voices  could  be  dealt  with  so 
simply;  and  whether  some  which  might  be 
very  good  in  parts  might  not  want  a  conscious 
treatment  to  strengthen  the  weak  places  and 
make  the  whole  perfect. 

So  it  is  in  talking  of  some  things  to  you. 
I  don't  want  to  suggest  difficulties  that  do 
not  exist,  but  I  feel  that  you  would  be  a  very 
unusual  person  if  you  could  go  through  life 
quite  undisturbed  by  the  troubles  that  dis- 
turb so  many  of  us.  And  taking  into  consid- 
eration the  fact  that  you  are,  in  part,  your 
mother's  own  son,  I  don't  think  a  helping 
hand  will  come  amiss.  So  I'll  leave  the 
medicine  on  the  shelf;  but  you  need  n't  take 
it  unless  you  feel  sick,  honey. 

There's  a  thing  called  religion  that  plays 
a  pretty  big  part  in  the  world ;  and  you  won't 
be  very  old  before  you  hear  such  things  said 
in  the  name  of  it,  and  see  such  things  done 
under  the  guise  of  it,  that  your  poor  brains 
114 


On  Religion 


will  be  a-whirl  with  perplexity  and  amaze- 
ment. 

You  will  find  people  apparently  serving 
under  the  same  banner,  upholding  the  same 
cause,  recognizing  the  same  Head,  who  are 
yet  fighting  between  themselves  as  if  they 
were  the  fiercest  and  most  implacable  ene- 
mies; and  fighting  over  the  very  thing  they 
all  seem  to  be  agreed  upon.  You  will  find 
people  professing  beliefs  they  have  never 
tested,  simply  because  their  fathers  believed 
such  before  them,  and  they  are  too  lazy  and 
too  indifferent  to  think  for  themselves.  And, 
what  has  sent  a  good  many  students  off  the 
rails  before  now,  you  will  find  men  of  repute 
and  honour  deliberately  teaching  the  thing 
they  have  ceased  to  believe  in,  because  they 
either  have  not  the  courage  to  break  away  or 
are  too  comfortable  by  the  hearth  such  teach- 
ing has  given  them. 

Now  I  am  not  preaching  revolt  to  you  for 


Letters  to  My  Son 

the  sake  of  revolt,  indeed  I  am  not  preaching 
it  at  all.  I  am  just  telling  you  of  things  that 
you  must  inevitably  come  across,  so  that 
when  you  do,  you  shall  not  lose  yourself  in  a 
slough  of  despair,  but  sit  down  quietly  and 
squarely  to  face  them. 

You  come  of  a  Protestant  stock  and  you 
will  be  brought  up  in  the  Church  of  England. 
When  you  are  able  to  speak,  you  will  say 
your  prayers  to  the  Jesus  who  was  a  baby 
and  a  boy  and  a  man  Himself,  and  when  you 
are  big  enough,  you  will  go  in  your  Sunday 
best  to  sit  in  a  high  pew  once  a  week,  and  fall 
asleep  against  your  mummy's  arm  —  oh, 
beloved,  if  I  am  there !  Later  on,  when  you 
are  n't  quite  such  a  torpid  little  dormouse, 
you  will  stop  going  to  sleep  and  sit  up  and 
listen  with  your  ears,  and  later  still  you  will 
listen  with  your  understanding,  and  then  you 
will  ask  questions.  And  when  you  begin  to 
ask  questions,  out  of  your  need,  man- let,  you 
116 


On  Religion 


have  put  your  hand  upon  the  hasp  of  the  gate 
that  leads  to  the  Garden  of  Bewilderment 
and  the  garden  is  only  the  beginning  of  the 
journey. 

The  trees  in  that  garden  will  be  mostly 
finger-posts,  and  the  flowers  chiefly  flowers 
of  speech,  and  many  times  you  will  long  for 
green  boughs  that  shelter  and  for  flowers  that 
speak  only  through  the  sweetness  of  their 
breath.  And  you  will  get  so  tired  with  the 
din  and  the  noise  and  the  racket  that  you  will 
want  to  put  your  fingers  in  your  ears  and  run 
right  away  from  everything  and  everybody, 
including  yourself. 

But  before  you  go,  honey,  come  here 
a  while  and  listen.  That  sounds  as  if  /  were 
going  to  be  a  finger-post,  does  n't  it  ?  Well, 
I'm  not;  I'm  just  going  to  take  your  dear 
little  hands  in  mine  for  a  moment  and  tell 
you  of  the  trees  I  found  for  myself  —  and 
that  others  have  found  too  —  in  the  garden 
117 


through  which  we  must  all  go  if  we  've  got 
any  intelligence,  or  curiosity,  or  imagination 
at  all. 

I  want  you  to  think  of  God,  not  as  an  all- 
powerful,  all-seeing  High  Priest  of  Heaven 
and  Judge  of  sinful  man,  but  simply  as  a 
Spirit  of  Good  which  is  everywhere,  if  one 
likes  to  look  for  it.  Think  of  Jesus  Christ 
as  a  man  who  lived  according  to  the  truth 
which  was  in  Him,  just  as  you  must  do ;  and 
read  what  He  says,  not  as  one  would  read  of 
miracles,  but  as  one  would  listen  to  the  words 
of  some  one  who  spoke  lovingly  and  out  of 
his  own  experiences. 

There  are  people  who  will  say  that  unless 
you  believe  that  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God 
and  the  Virgin  Mary,  you  have  no  chance  of 
going  to  Heaven  at  all ;  and  there  are  others 
who  will  tell  you  there  is  no  Heaven  to  go  to. 

I  don't  know,  sweetheart;  you  must  'listen 
to  all  sides  and  filter  them  from  yourself/  It 
118 


On  Religion 


seems  to  me  that  all  the  belief  in  the  divinity 
of  Christ  that  a  world  holds  is  n't  going  to 
give  us  an  inheritance  if  we  have  lived  other- 
wise untruly,  nor  all  the  doubt  keep  it  from 
us  if  we  have  lived  as  honestly  as  we  knew 
how.  And  it  seems,  too,  as  if  it  would  be  so 
much  better  not  to  worry  our  heads  about  a 
future  existence  and  the  rewards  attached 
to  it.  Now  is  the  appointed  time.  The  re- 
vivalists use  those  words  to  frighten  what 
they  call  poor  sinners  on  to  their  knees;  but 
I  would  not  have  you  on  your  knees,  I  would 
say  it  to  you  that  you  might  be  up  and  doing. 
Now  is  the  appointed  time,  beloved,  the  time 
for  work,  for  play,  for  joy,  and  for  sorrow. 
You  can  surely  worship  more  truly  by  living 
truly  than  by  all  the  prayer  and  meditation 
you  can  crowd  into  a  life  full  of  years  —  and 
by  living  truly,  I  don't  mean  according  to  the 
truth  as  it  is  told  you,  but  according  to  the 
truth  as  it  tells  itself  to  you.  You  are  bound 
119 


Letters  to  My  Son 

to  make  mistakes ;  very  likely  the  things  that 
are  truths  to  you  to-day  will  be  doubts  to- 
morrow; but  while  they  are  truths  you  must 
stand  by  them,  even  though  you  are  going 
against  all  existing  truths  —  or  conventions 
—  by  doing  it.  But  be  very  certain  that  they 
are  truths  to  you  before  you  begin  your  oppo- 
sition, and  while  you  are  hesitating,  again  re- 
member the  words  of  one  whom  you  will  read 
some  day:  'You  shall  listen  to  all  sides  and 
filter  them  from  yourself.'  Don't  fight  exist- 
ing truths  just  for  the  sake  of  fighting;  but  if 
there  is  anything  in  you  which  challenges 
them,  keep  them  by  you  till  you  can  test  them 
by  the  acid  of  your  own  experience,  and  then 
say  what  you  will  and  do  what  you  must. 

And  if  the  God  of  Churches,  or  the  God  of 
Reason,  fails  you,  go  out  to  that  other  God, 
the  God  of  the  open  world.  He  will  speak 
to  you  in  the  wind  and  the  trees  and  the  sky. 
He  will  tell  you  great  unspoken  things  in  the 
1 20 


On  Religion 


swaying  of  the  branches  and  the  beating  of 
the  rain,  and  dear  tender  things  in  the  blades 
of  grass  and  the  cool  fronded  streams.  He 
will  make  you  that  you  are  not  afraid  when 
you  are  with  Him. 

Sometimes,  little  son,  before  I  was  happy 
with  your  father,  I  have  left  the  house  and 
gone  stumbling  up  the  hill,  with  such  pain 
tearing  at  my  throat  and  blinding  my  eyes 
that  I  could  scarcely  see  where  I  was  walking. 
And  I  have  come  back  sane  and  with  my 
head  up,  The  pain  was  still  there,  but  a  cool 
hand  had  been  laid  upon  my  head  and  the 
frenzy  was  gone.  And  if  you  are  like  me, 
you  will  get  more  peace  and  strength  from 
the  sound  of  the  wind  in  the  trees  than  from 
all  the  books  of  philosophy  that  ever  were 
written.  When  I  was  trying  to  fit  myself  in 
with  everything  that  man  ever  said,  like  the 
poor  gentleman  with  the  ass  in  the  fable,  I 
used  to  worry  terribly  because  no  written 

121 


Letters  to  My  Son 

creed  could  give  me  what  I  got  from  waving 
grass  or  running  water.  I  was  brought  up  like 
a  dutiful  child,  to  believe  that  everybody 
older  than  I  must  know  better  than  I  because 
he  was  older.  It's  a  good  and  necessary 
thing  to  believe,  as  long  as  you  ought,  be- 
loved, because  it  saves  you  from  a  heap  of 
your  own  mistakes  and  also  from  being 
thought,  rightly,  an  insufferable  little  prig. 
But  I  went  on  thinking  it  too  long,  just  be- 
cause, I  suppose,  it  had  become  a  habit.  I 
was  like  a  baby  being  wheeled  about  in  a 
perambulator  years  after  I  should  have  been 
walking.  I  felt  the  urge  to  use  my  legs,  but 
it  meant  gathering  one's  self  up  to  take  the 
plunge  out  of  the  perambulator,  and  such  a 
thing  was  not  easy  when  every  one  round 
about  was  waiting  and  ready,  at  the  first  sign, 
to  stuff  you  back  again.  And  it  is  harder 
even  for  girl-babies  to  leave  the  perambulator 
than  it  is  for  boy-ones,  because  the  whole 

122 


On  Religion 


world  seems  to  resent  the  truth  that  girls  have 
legs  at  ally  for  walking  purposes.  That  is, 
mental  legs,  you  understand,  Kindchen. 

So  I  went  on  trying  to  take  headers  out  of 
the  perambulator,  and  being  seized  by  the 
heels  and  put  back,  till  sometimes,  when  an 
adventure  with  its  after-cure  of  chastisement 
had  left  me  more  than  ordinarily  breathless, 
I  would  wonder  if  it  was  really  better  to  stay 
where  I  was.  But  if  you've  got  to  walk, 
you've  got  to,  honey,  and  that's  all  about  it; 
and  at  last  I  found  myself  really  out  of  the 
perambulator. 

Then  came  the  aches  and  pains  in  my  poor 
legs,  and  sometimes  the  longing  to  be  back 
again  in  the  comfortable  carriage  I  had  left. 
But  I  found  that  when  once  you  had  walked 
you  could  n't  go  back;  and  when  my  mental 
feet  were  weary,  I  just  went  out  on  my 
material  ones,  and  got  from  the  stars  and  the 
night-dews  and  the  scented  earth  all  that  my 
123 


Letters  to  My  Son 

own  and  other  people's  tongue-waggings  had 
lost  me. 

Yet  there  were  those  who  condemned  such 
communion  as  unchristian,  and  others  who 
dismissed  it  as  mere  sensuousness;  and  in 
sheer  bewilderment  I  wondered  if  every- 
thing that  was  natural  and  spontaneous  in  the 
heart  of  man  must  be  plucked  out  and  sup- 
planted by  everything  that  was  conscious 
and  artificial.  Oh,  beloved,  how  sick  I  got  of 
it  at  times !  I  used  to  feel  as  you  would  if  you 
were  called  in  to  wash  your  hands,  and  put 
on  tight  shoes  for  a  drawing-room  tea,  when 
you  might  be  bathing  naked  in  a  clear  pool 
or  sprawling  free  on  a  grass-covered  hill. 
And  it  does  n't  make  you  good  to  be  in  a 
drawing-room  when  you  don't  want  to  be 
there,  any  more  than  it  makes  you  bad  to  be 
on  a  hill-top  when  you  do.  As  a  matter  of 
courtesy  you  wash  your  hands  and  come 
inside,  but  not  as  a  matter  of  conviction. 
124 


On  Religion 


Then,  when  you  foolishly  try,  as  I  did,  to 
make  it  a  matter  of  conviction,  you  create 
out  of  yourself  something  that  is  neither  fish, 
flesh,  fowl,  nor  good  red-herring  —  some- 
thing that  is  of  no  use  to  any  one,  and  a  bur- 
den to  yourself. 

But  once  I  went  to  a  dinner-party  and  sat 
next  a  man  who  felt  as  I  did,  and  he  told  me 
of  a  little  book  called  '  The  New  Sayings  of 
Jesus.'  I  bought  it  and  found  something 
between  the  leaves  of  it  that  was  like  a  mes- 
sage, and  it  seemed  to  snap  the  last  thread 
that  held  the  tatters  of  my  doubts  around  me. 

'Jesus  saith,  whenever  there  are  two  they 
are  not  without  God,  and  whenever  there  is 
one  alone  I  say  I  am  with  him.  Raise  the 
stone  and  there  thou  shall  find  me,  cleave  the 
wood  and  there  am  /.' 

It  did  n't  matter  whether  the  Man  who 
said  it  was  divine ;  His  right  to  say  it  was  the 
perfection  of  His  own  life;  and  when  you 
125 


Letters  to  My  Son 

found  such  a  one  supporting  what  in  you 
was  an  ineradicable  instinct,  you  felt  you 
could  just  let  the  little  doxy-mongers  go.  If 
they  found  God  in  argument,  they  must  go 
to  argument  for  Him ;  but  if  you  felt  Him  in 
the  trees  and  the  stones,  that  was  the  place 
for  you  to  look ;  and  the  assurance  of  a  man 
as  great  as  Jesus  Christ  was  surely  assurance 
enough,  if  assurance  were  needed ! 

So  if  it  comes  to  you,  my  son,  to  get  your 
strength  and  your  consolation  and  your 
power  from  the  silent  things  of  the  earth,  let 
no  one  make  you  believe  it  anything  but 
right. 

For  myself,  all  that  I  can  say  is,  flowers 
in  a  garden  make  me  want  to  be  good;  and 
wind  blowing  in  the  tree-tops  tells  me  I  am 
eternal.  And  the  sun  and  the  flowers  and 
the  trees  and  the  wind  make  me  feel  that  I 
must  stand  bareheaded  with  my  face  to  the 
sky,  and  say,  'Thank  you*  to  something; 
126 


On  Religion 


and  wanting  to  say,  'Thank  you*  makes  my 
heart  feel  tender  to  everything  that  lives. 
Oh,  little  thing,  as  you  lie  beneath  my  heart, 
I  would  think  great  and  tender  things,  that 
you  in  the  quietness  of  your  growing-time 
may  grow  as  great  and  loving  as  I  myself 
would  like  to  be. 


VIII 

On  Respecting 
the  Body 


VIII 

On  Respecting 
the  Body 


SOMETIMES,  knowing  what  the  dan- 
gers are  that  beset  a  child  from  the  mo- 
ment when  his  brain  begins  to  work  and  his 
mind  to  observe,  I  have  suffered  very  great 
fear  for  you.  I  have  thought  of  you  as  you  lay, 
a  little  unconscious  nursling,  in  your  cradle, 
and  then,  as  an  eager  stumbling  baby  whose 
steps  I  followed  while  you  staggered  haltingly 
from  chair  to  chair.  I  was  there  to  save  you, 
to  stretch  out  my  hand  and  preserve  you  from 
the  sharp  corners  of  chairs  that  would  have 
bruised  you  if  you  had  fallen  against  them. 
I  knew  where  the  danger  lay  and  I  saw  when 
the  insecurity  threatened,  and  I  was  ready. 


Letters  to  My  Son 

And  I  pictured  you  in  later  years,  going  to 
school,  full  of  the  wonder  of  the  unknown, 
sitting  bolt  upright,  with  shining  eyes,  beside 
your  father,  who  was  carrying  you  off  to  that 
new  world  through  the  gates  of  which  you 
saw  your  manhood  beckoning. 

And  as  you  drove  away  I  watched  you  far 
down  the  road  till  the  bend  carried  you  out 
of  sight.  Just  before  the  carriage  disap- 
peared, you  stood  up  and  waved  your  little 
cap  high  over  your  head,  and  I  waved  back, 
standing  quite,  quite  still.  But  my  heart  was 
running,  beloved,  running  fast  and  breath- 
less and  sobbing,  after  the  wheels  that  were 
carrying  the  baby  from  me  forever.  I  knew 
you  had  to  grow  into  a  man  and  I  would  not 
keep  you  back,  but  the  moment  of  renounce- 
ment was  like  a  thousand  years  of  pain.  You 
would  come  back  to  me,  but  the  baby  that 
used  to  bring  his  broken  knees  to  be  kissed 
and  who  crooned  his  drowsy  little  self  to 
132 


On  Respecting  the  Body 

sleep  upon  my  neck  would  be  gone,  and  I 
could  but  fill  my  arms  with  dreams  of  him. 

And  during  the  days  that  followed,  when  I 
was  teaching  myself  not  to  listen  for  your 
footsteps  in  the  house  or  your  impetuous 
knock  upon  my  door,  the  vision  of  your  life 
at  school  was  always  with  me.  In  my  longing 
to  protect  you,  my  mind  flew  to  the  unsus- 
pected dangers  that  might  be  upon  you  before 
you  understood  their  significance  or  their 
consequence.  I  knew  how  other  lives  as 
splendid  and  as  well-begun  as  yours,  had  been 
wrecked  through  lack  of  knowledge  and  wise 
guidance  in  their  growing-time;  and  the  fear 
that  you  might  suffer  so  was  such  an  anguish 
to  me  that  I  wanted  to  run  to  you  there  and 
then,  and  snatch  you  from  the  very  chance 
of  it. 

But  oh,  honey,  what  a  silly  old  mummy  it 
was,  was  n't  it  ?  Fancy  if  I  had  burst  into 
the  master's  study  and  demanded  you  from 


Letters  to  My  Son 

him  because  I  was  afraid  you  were  going  to 
know  things  that  would  n't  be  good  for  you, 
and  I  was  n't  sure  whether  you  'd  have  the 
courage  or  the  sense  or  the  will  to  overcome ! 
He  would  have  been  astonished  and  you 
would  have  been  cross  and  I  should  have  got 
into  trouble! 

So,  as  that  was  no  use,  I  just  sat  down 
quietly  to  think  it  all  out  —  to  find  a  way. 
My  first  instinct  was  to  keep  you  ignorant 
at  any  cost,  but  my  second  told  me  that  there 
could  be  no  growth  or  development  in  a  life 
lived  in  a  glass-case,  and  I  knew  that  I  would 
rather  have  you  suffer  a  thousand  times  than 
reach  the  end  of  your  life  untried,  unproved, 
and  undeveloped. 

But  there  is  one  thing  I  am  going  to  ask  of 
you  and  it  is  this :  be  content  to  believe  im- 
plicitly what  I  tell  you  with  regard  to  the 
preservation  of  your  body,  until  the  time 
comes  when  you  can  understand  the  truth 


On  Respecting  the  Body 

of  things  and  choose  for  yourself.  This  will 
perhaps  carry  you  up  to  the  time  of  going  to 
college  and  even  after;  but  remember  that, 
from  the  moment  your  mind  intelligently 
asks  the  reason  why,  I  want  no  wnquestion- 
ing  obedience.  Come  to  me  or  to  Oliver,  and 
we  will  talk  it  over.  There  are  some  who 
may  not  understand.  So  many  people  seem 
to  think  that  refusing  to  see  life  as  it  is  is  a 
mark  of  spirituality,  and  that  wanting  to 
know  is  merely  an  improper  curiosity.  That 
may  be  so  for  them,  but  it  is  not  so  for  the 
surgeon,  the  scientist,  the  philosopher;  and 
it  will  not  be  so  for  you,  beloved,  for  you 
are  going  to  be  a  man  and  a  fine  splendid 
man,  —  not  a  skulker  behind  the  skirts  of 
Inexperience. 

But  while  I  would  not  have  you  shirk 
anything  that  would  go  to  your  making,  yet 
I  would  not  have  you  hanging  about  on  the 
doorstep  of  life  waiting  to  dart  out  at  every 


Letters  to  My  Son 

little  sensation  that  flitted  by.  I  don't  think 
there  will  be  much  fear  of  that,  for,  what 
with  your  cricket  and  your  footer  and  your 
lessons  and  your  *  lines '  and  the  thought  of 
what  you  're  going  to  be  when  you  Ve  got  a 
mustache,  you  won't  have  a  great  deal  of 
time  for  anything  but  sleep.  And  such  a 
division  of  time  is  good. 

But  if  you  should  be  the  child  whose 
activities  lie  equally  in  the  brain  as  in  the 
body,  whose  imagination  is  as  keen  as  his 
capacity  for  living,  then  the  situation  may 
not  be  so  simple. 

There  are  thoughts  which  come  to  most 
of  us  in  the  unconscious  years  of  our  life, 
floating  nebulously  for  a  while  through  our 
understanding,  and  disappearing  in  the  in- 
terest of  outside  environment.  But  some- 
times a  chance  happening  will  cause  them 
to  take  shape  and  to  crystallize,  and  the  re- 
sult of  such  thoughts,  through  ignorance, 
136 


On  Respecting  the  Body 

may  in  later  years  cloud  and  hamper  a  life- 
time. 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  talk  any  pretty  talk 
about  ideals,  because  you'd  immediately 
get  a  vision  of  long-haired  poets  and  stained- 
glass  saints,  and  you  would  n't  listen  any 
more.  But  let  me  put  it  this  way.  If  it  were 
said  to  you  by  some  one  who  knew  all  about 
it :  *  You  jolly  well  can't  cox  if  you  eat  jam- 
tart  at  that  rate,'  you  would  let  the  jam-tart 
go,  I  think.  You  would  do  that  because  you 
did  n't  want  to  be  kept  out  of  your  race.  And 
I  would  tell  you  that  there  are  great  things 
coming  to  you  with  your  manhood,  and  that 
you  must  keep  your  body  clean  and  whole- 
some for  them.  Any  act  or  thought  that  is 
secret  and  carries  with  it  fear  of  detection  is 
not  good;  and  for  that  reason  I  want  you 
always  to  go  out  when  your  mind  is  perturbed 
or  your  imagination  is  stirring.  It  is  not  that 
I  want  to  talk  morality,  —  no  man  can  make 
137 


Letters  to  My  Son 

morality  for  another,  —  it  is  just  that  I  want 
you  to  have  your  chance  to  be  whole  and 
perfect  when  you  come  to  choose  intelli- 
gently your  good  and  evil.  If,  when  you  were 
too  small  to  understand,  you  had  grasped 
the  candle-flame  and  your  little  ringers  had 
blistered  and  grown  together  so  that  you 
were  unable  ever  afterwards  to  spread  your 
hand  out  or  grasp  anything  properly,  the 
moment  of  anticipation  would  not  pay  for 
the  pain  and  the  perpetual  handicap  that 
indulgence  had  imposed  upon  you.  And 
there  are  acts  committed  just  as  heedlessly, 
and  with  no  wilful  thought  of  evil,  which  do 
not  inflict  the  immediate  pain  of  the  candle- 
flame,  but  which  might  suddenly  and  in  your 
prime  disqualify  you  from  all  splendid  activ- 
ities in  the  race  that  is  not  finished  till  our 
very  last  breath  is  drawn. 

I,  who  in  my  selfishness  would  keep  you 
always  the  little  baby  who  looked  to  me  for 
138 


On  Respecting  the  Body 

everything,  and  who  knew  no  greater  wicked- 
ness than  lying  open-eyed  when  he  should 
be  sleeping,  I  would  tell  you  of  these  things, 
not  to  force  them  upon  you  but  that  you 
should  have  a  guard  in  your  hand  in  case  you 
needed  one.  Danger-signals  are  not  hoisted 
that  people  should  run  into  risk,  but  that  they 
should  avoid  it,  and  wise  people  use  them  so. 
And  I  am  sure  you  will  be  wise  enough  for 
that,  won't  you,  beloved  ? 


IX 

On  a  Hair-Brush 


IX 

On  a  Hair-Brush 


TO-DAY,  when  Oliver  came  back  from 
town,  he  brought  a  little  hair-brush 
for  you  from  the  ivory  shop  in  Piccadilly. 

'There  was  one  I  hesitated  about,  won- 
dering if  you  would  like  it  better,'  he  said, 
*  a  jolly  little  silver  thing  enamelled  all  over 
with  roses;  then  I  thought  it  was  scarcely 
up  to  a  man  to  have  roses  on  his  hair-brush, 
so  I  took  this.  Is  it  right  ?  * 

'It's  lovely,'  I  said,  turning  it  over  and 
brushing  the  back  of  my  hand  with  it,  '  but 
you  did  n't  get  his  name  put  on  it.' 

'What  is  his  name  ?'  asked  Oliver  as  if  he 
did  n't  know  all  the  time. 
H3 


Letters  to  My  Son 

I  hesitated  a  moment  and  he  waited  ex- 
pectantly. 

*  I  was  thinking  of  calling  him  Horace  or 
Reginald,'  I  said.    'What  do  you  think?' 

He  caught  hold  of  my  wrists.  'I  think,'  he 
said,  'that  you  don't  speak  the  truth  and  I 
shall  have  to  punish  you.' 

'How?' 

*  I  shall  not  be  able  to  kiss  you  till  you  do/ 
(Just  what  I  '11  have  to  say  to  you,  honey.) 

'Horace  or  Reginald,'  I  said  looking  up  at 
him  deliberately,  'perhaps  both.' 

There  was  a  pause. 

'That  means  you  don't  want  me  to  kiss 
you  ? ' 

I  did  n't  answer.  He  looked  such  a  darling 
that  I  was  wondering  how  long  I  could  go  on. 
It  was  like  holding  your  breath. 

'  I  must  try  it  another  way,'  he  said  as  if 
to  himself. 

Then  he  looked  at  me  gravely. 
144 


On  a  Hair-Brush 

*  Margie,'  he  said,  '  if  you  won't  speak  the 
truth  I  '11  kiss  you  till  you  do.' 

'  His  name 's  Oliver,  of  course,'  I  said,  in  a 
terrific  hurry. 

Oliver  looked  at  me.  For  one  part  of  a 
moment  he  seemed  as  if  he  were  going  to  do 
what  I  expected ;  then  he  dropped  my  wrists 
and  turned  away. 

'You've  just  saved  yourself,'  he  said 
blandly. 

'Oh!' 

I  nipped  it  off  my  tongue  in  time.  He  took 
his  everlasting  pipe  out  of  his  pocket  and 
began  wriggling  a  hairpin  up  the  stem  of  it. 
I  went  on  watching  his  calm  unconscious 
back  with  indignation.  I  wish  we  had  had 
pipes  to  play  with  at  psychological  moments. 

'Oliver!' 

'Margie.' 

He  said  it  politely  but  he  did  n't  turn 
round.   I  threw  up  the  sponge. 
HI 


Letters  to  My  Son 

'Oh,  I  don't  want  to  be  saved!'  I  said  ex- 
asperatedly. 

Indeed  the  very  nicest  of  you  men  are  try- 
ing at  times. 

Concerning  that  hair-brush,  beloved,  it 
was  bought  for  you  with  great  love  and 
thoughtfulness,  and  while  I,  believing  in  the 
absolute  freedom  of  the  individual,  would 
hate  to  be  arbitrary  or  dogmatic,  yet  I  can- 
not refrain  from  suggesting  that  you  should 
meet  us  half-way  in  the  matter. 

It  is  the  custom  of  a  great  many  babies  to 
go  through  the  earliest  stages  of  their  exist- 
ence with  their  heads  in  a  state  of  discon- 
certing nudity;  and  you  must  know,  if  you 
have  any  intuitive  feeling  at  all,  how  dis- 
heartening such  a  condition  is  to  those  people 
who  are  doing  all  in  their  power  to  provide 
for  your  needs  and  to  make  you  welcome. 
I  feel  that  anyhow  you  will  be  rather  a  shock 
146 


On  a  Hair-Brush 

to  Oliver,  because  I'm  afraid  that  he  has 
got  it  into  his  head  you  are  going  to  be  born 
with  long  curls  and  a  blue  sash ;  so  although 
I  won't  try  to  bias  or  restrict  you,  beloved,  I 
must  ask  you,  if  you  are  going  to  be  bald,  not 
to  be  spitefully  bald. 


X 

On  Fear 


X 

On  Fear 


THERE  are  times  when  I  get  horribly 
afraid;  afraid  that  I  may  not  live  to 
hold  you  in  my  arms  and  watch  you  grow  to 
be  a  man.  Oh,  I  'm  not  afraid  of  death  and 
what  comes  after !  I  'm  only  afraid  of  leaving 
you  and  Oliver.  I  want  to  stay  with  you  both, 
to  live  with  you  and  laugh  with  you  and  weep 
with  you,  to  share  your  pleasures  and  your 
pains,  to  take  care  of  you  and  to  be  taken  care 
of  by  you.  I  know  that  the  world  would  n't 
stop  revolving  if  I  dropped  out,  I  know  my 
gap  would  very  quickly  be  filled  by  a  hundred 
greater,  better,  wiser  than  I;  but  I  want  to 
stay !  It  comes  over  me  so  desperately  some- 


Letters  to  My  Son 

times,  and  it  is  the  ridiculous  little  nothings 
of  life  that  bring  it. 

This  morning  I  was  looking  through  a 
basket  of  mending.  I  picked  up  one  of 
Oliver's  socks  and  drew  it  over  my  hand: 
there  was  the  same  little  hole  in  the  same 
place  that  is  there  every  week  in  every  pair. 
I  remembered  how,  once,  in  one  sock  I  had 
not  found  it,  and  how  absurdly  cheated  I  had 
felt.  Probing  right  to  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
I  discovered  the  reason  why.  He  had  put  on 
a  pair,  and  then  changed  them  for  another 
without  wearing  them.  I  could  not  have 
rested  till  I  got  to  the  truth. 

As  I  looked  at  the  sock  upon  my  hand  I 
smiled,  and  then,  being  quite  alone,  I  kissed 
it.  It  did  so  belong  to  Oliver  that  it  was 
almost  like  his  being  in  the  room.  Why 
should  a  great  big  man  patiently  go  on  wear- 
ing the  same  silly  little  hole  in  his  socks  week 
after  week,  month  after  month,  year  after 
152 


On  Fear 

year,  unless  it  was  meant  to  be  him  as  much 
as  his  hair  and  his  teeth  and  his  eyes  were 
him  ?  I  kissed  it  again. 

Then,  suddenly,  it  came  over  me  that  in  a 
few  more  months  I  might  know  nothing 
about  either  Oliver  or  you  or  the  lovely 
ordinary  things  that  go  to  make  up  warm, 
heartbreaking,  human,  throbbing  life.  Oliver 
would  wear  the  holes  and  have  them  mended 
every  week,  you  would  cry  and  be  comforted, 
go  to  sleep  and  be  dressed,  be  dosed  with 
dill-water  and  decked  with  ribbons,  change 
from  long  to  short  clothes,  from  short  clothes 
to  jumpers,  and  from  jumpers  to  knicker- 
bockers and  glory.  And  I  —  I  would  be 
somewhere  outside,  with  never  a  sight  or  a 
sound  of  all  the  things  that  I  loved;  and  never 
a  touch. 

In  the  extreme  moment,  I  forgot  you. 
Sometimes,  when  I  have  been  hunting  about 
for  the  best  way  of  helping  you  to  be  a  man, 


Letters  to  My  Son 

it  has  seemed  as  if  perhaps  I  might  be  more 
useful  as  a  memory  than  as  a  mother,  be- 
cause, as  you  know  already,  beloved,  I  am  so 
full  of  stupidnesses  and  evilnesses  and  dis- 
appointingnesses,  that  you  might  find  it  dif- 
ficult to  take  in  what  I  said  while  you  were 
watching  what  I  did.  Looking  at  it  that  way, 
I  began  to  wonder  whether  I  did  n't  owe  it 
to  you  to  retire. 

But  this  morning  I  had  no  such  selfless 
thoughts;  only  a  great  overwhelming  fear, 
that  filled  the  listening  silences  and  held  me 
still  while  I  waited  for  that  which  was  going 
to  take  me  away  from  you  and  Oliver  and  the 
flowers  and  the  sun  and  the  dear  muddy 
streets  and  the  dull  winter  days  with  the  fire- 
light to  make  them  beautiful  and  tender  and 
intimate. 

Then  I  forgot  you,  and  only  Oliver  re- 
mained. He  was  my  man  and  I  could  not 
leave  him.  We  had  lived  together,  lain  to- 
'54 


On  Fear 

gather,  loved  together,  and  shared  together 
for  seven  splendid  years,  and  we  were  part 
of  each  other.  He  would  not  let  me  go.  If 
I  went  to  him  now,  he  would  take  me  in  his 
arms  and  hold  me  safe  from  all  fear  and  all 
harm.  Love  would  make  me  invulnerable : 
I  should  not  die.  Oliver  would  not  let  me 
die. 

But  all  the  time  a  clear  relentless  voice 
kept  saying  inside  my  head :  '  Love  has  not 
held  others,  why  should  it  hold  you  ?  It  has 
not  made  exception  for  others,  why  should 
it  make  exception  for  you  ?  There  are  no 
exceptions.  When  your  moment  comes,  you 
go  just  as  surely  and  certainly  as  the  sun  sets 
and  the  moon  wanes.' 

In  a  terror  I  jumped  up  to  run  to  him; 
then  suddenly  I  remembered  something  and 
stopped. 

A  while  ago  I  had  tried  to  talk  with  him 
about  the  bringing  up  of  you  in  case  I  did 


Letters  to  My  Son 

not  get  through.  The  things  I  spoke  of  were 
just  ordinary  things,  like  sleeping  with  your 
window  open  and  wearing  light  warm  cloth- 
ing. Then  I  went  on  to  say  that,  first  and 
foremost  and  last  and  always,  I  wanted  you 
to  be  an  honest  person  whatever  else  you 
were,  when  I  looked  up  and  saw  Oliver's 
face. 

There  was  such  hurt  in  it  that  I  stopped 
short.  I  had  forgotten  everything  but  you 
and  your  needs  till  then.  I  got  up  and  went 
over  to  him. 

'Stupid/  I  said,  putting  my  arm  round  his 
neck  and  rubbing  my  cheek  against  his 
own.  '  I  am  not  really  going  to  die.  It  was 
only  "  in  case."  '  I  laughed  ever  such  a  little 
bit. 

He  pulled  me  down  on  to  his  knee  and  held 
me  close  but  he  did  n't  speak. 

'It  would  be  a  very  careless  thing  to  do,' 
I  went  on,  smoothing  the  lines  out  of  his 

156 


On  Fear 

forehead  with  my  thumb  and  finger; '  a  very 
careless  thing,  with  two  men  to  be  looked 
after  and  one  only  just  used  to  the  pernickety 
ways  of  one  of  them !  Smile  at  me,  grumpy/ 

He  went  on  staring  at  me  miserably. 

'Margie,'  he  said  at  last,  almost  in  a  whis- 
per, 'you  won't  leave  me,  you'll  stay  with 
me  always  ? ' 

'Always  and  always  and  always,'  I  said, 
taking  his  face  between  my  hands  and  kissing 
it  over  and  over  again. 

So,  whenever  I  have  been  afraid  since,  I 
have  kept  it  to  myself;  but  this  morning  the 
fear  was  so  horrible  that  I  would  have  rushed 
to  him  in  the  mad  terror  of  it  if  I  had  not 
remembered  just  in  time. 

I  dropped  back  into  the  chair  and  held  on 
to  the  arms,  trying  to  pull  myself  together, 
but  it  was  no  use.  Something  was  coming 
steadily,  slowly,  inevitably,  to  take  me  away 
from  Oliver.  My  mind  was  like  a  great  fear- 
'57 


Letters  to  My  Son 

swept  space.  The  Thing  came  with  a  muffled 
tramp,  nearer,  nearer,  like  the  advance  of 
an  invisible  army. 

The  room  was  very  quiet.  Through  the 
open  window  came  the  whirr  of  a  reaping- 
machine  in  a  distant  field ;  it  sounded  a  long 
way  off,  almost  as  if  it  were  in  another  world. 
A  little  clock  on  the  mantelpiece  was  ticking 
the  time  away. 

I  put  up  my  hand  and  caught  at  my  throat; 
I  was  choking.  Oh,  to  get  to  Oliver  before 
this  Thing  took  me,  to  be  able  to  hear  the 
sound  of  his  voice,  to  feel  the  roughness  of 
his  coat-sleeve!  Before  I  knew  what  I  was 
doing,  I  was  tearing  along  the  corridor  to  the 
study. 

It  was  empty.  I  turned  and  ran  toward  the 
gun-room,  pushing  open  the  door  and  almost 
falling  through  it. 

He  was  there  with  a  gun  in  pieces  on  the 
table,  examining  it. 


On  Fear 

As  the  door  burst  open,  he  looked  up 
quickly. 

'What  is  it?'  he  spoke  sharply,  impera- 
tively. 

I  pulled  myself  up. 

'It's  nothing,'  I  gasped.  'I  only  won- 
dered where  you  were/ 

But  I  dropped  my  eyes  because  I  could 
feel  that  all  the  horror  that  was  in  my  mind 
was  in  them  too.  And  I  tried  to  keep  my 
fingers  off  his  coat  but  I  could  n't,  beloved. 

He  did  n't  say  a  word.  He  went  over  and 
locked  the  door;  then  he  picked  me  up  as  if 
I  were  no  weight  at  all,  and  carried  me  to  the 
big  chair  by  the  fireplace,  and  together  we 
stayed,  so,  for  a  long  beautiful  time,  he  hold- 
ing me  close  in  his  arms,  I  lying  there  still 
and  quiet.  And  every  now  and  then  he  would 
lay  his  cheek  to  mine,  and  I  would  put  my 
hand  up  and  touch  his  face;  and  gradu- 
ally all  the  fear  went  and  it  seemed  as  if  I 
159 


Letters  to  My  Son 

could  have  died  then,  easily,  for  very  hap- 
piness. 

All  the  day,  till  now,  he  has  not  left  me  and 
only  now  because  I  have  made  him.  I  said 
I  had  something  important  to  do  and  that  I 
would  never  do  it  unless  he  went  right  away; 
for  truly,  beloved,  I  have  felt  restless  when 
he  has  gone  even  as  far  as  the  next  room. 
But  I  knew  he  was  wanted  in  one  of  the  fields, 
so  I  made  a  mighty  effort;  and  he  is  off  with 
Trixie  at  his  heels,  and  I,  little  son,  am  telling 
you  all  about  it,  perhaps  because  I  want  to 
ease  my  mind  and  perhaps  because  you  will 
have  a  woman  of  your  own  some  day,  and  it 
will  not  be  bad  for  her  that  you  should  know. 

Your  father  has  given  me  very  much  joy 
always,  beloved. 


XI 

On  Living  Heartily 


XI 

On  Living  Heartily 


THERE  lives  a  man  not  far  away, 
who  is  spending  a  good  deal  of  his  time 
just  now  in  working  out  a  plan  for  the  happi- 
ness of  himself  and  mankind  in  general,  if 
mankind  in  general  is  going  to  bend  an  ear 
to  listen.  Every  now  and  then  he  dines  with 
us  or  we  with  him,  and  on  those  occasions  any 
one  present  has  an  opportunity  of  hearing 
all  about  it.  Last  night  he  came  to  us.  After 
he  had  gone,  Oliver  walked  into  the  draw- 
ing-room where  I  was  sitting  by  myself,  and 
shutting  the  door  carefully  behind  him,  stood 
still  in  the  middle  of  the  room  looking  at  me. 
I  looked  back  at  him  without  speaking. 
163 


Letters  to  My  Son 

*  Mason's  a  good  chap,'  he  said  at  last 
slowly,  'and  I  suppose  it  takes  all  sorts  to 
make  a  world ;  but  I  'd  be  sorry  if  he  had  the 
making  of  mine.' 

There  was  a  shadow  in  his  eyes  almost  as 
if  Mason's  talk  had  troubled  him. 
I  laughed. 

*  Don't  you  worry,'  I  said,  'his  sort  has  n't 
the  making  of  any  worlds,  only  the  talking  of 
them.' 

He  stood  so  for  a  moment  more,  then  his 
eyes  cleared  and  he  came  and  put  his  hands 
on  my  shoulders,  bending  over  me  and  gaz- 
ing down  into  my  face  intently.  When  he 
spoke  it  was  as  if  he  were  saying  a  creed  :  — 

'Thank  God  for  you  and  all  the  trouble 
you  've  cost  me ;  thank  God  for  rain  and  fine, 
for  crops  that  fail,  for  horses  to  ride.  Thank 
Him  for  blood  instead  of  filtered  water.' 

He  drew  a  long  breath  and  stood  up- 
right. 

164 


On  Living  Heartily 

'And  thank  Him  for  Mason  who  has  taught 
you  to  know  the  value  of  us,'  I  said. 

*  Thank  Him  for  Mason/  added  Oliver, 
not  quite  so  fervently;  and  we  fell  to  upon 
the  picture-puzzle  that  has  been  tying  us  in 
knots  for  three  baffled  days. 

At  college  you  will  come  across  a  heap  of 
embryo  Masons,  all  setting  the  machinery 
of  their  minds  to  work  upon  a  scheme  that  is 
going  to  manufacture  happiness  and  admin- 
ister it  in  whatever  quantities  it  may  be  re- 
quired. You  will  be  able  to  have  an  ounce, 
or  a  pound,  or  a  ton,  but  you  will  be  so  well- 
regulated  that  you  will  never  take  more  than 
a  nibble,  and  so  you  will  never  have  lack  or 
fullness  or  indigestion  or  satiety:  indeed, 
beloved,  you  will  never  have  anything.  It 
sounds  jolly,  does  n't  it  ? 

I  know  a  good  deal  about  it,  for  Mason 
is  a  kind  person  and  inclined  to  be  sorry  for 
Oliver  and  me,  and  I  think  he  wants  to  help 
l65 


Letters  to  My  Son 

us.  He  has  told  us  a  lot  about  what  he  and 
his  fellow-workers  are  striving  after,  and  the 
gist  of  it  appears  to  be  this. 

By  the  steady  application  of  his  treatment, 
all  pain  will  be  abolished  and  all  inconven- 
ience done  away  with.  If  a  man  finds  him- 
self desiring  a  thing  too  much,  or  hopelessly, 
he  will  have  it  in  his  power  to  shut  down  or 
divert  his  passion  by  a  method  of  reducing 
the  blood-pressure;  if  he  wishes  a  greater 
enjoyance  of  it,  he  has  only  to  work  upon  the 
opposite  plan,  and  satisfaction  is  his.  Prac- 
tically every  creature  —  that  is  every  modern 
psychologist,  which  is  the  name  Mason  gives 
himself — will  be  provided  with  a  thermome- 
ter and  two  boxes  of  tabloids,  one  for  and 
the  other  against.  With  the  aid  of  the  ther- 
mometer he  will  discover  his  condition  and 
treat  it  with  whichever  tabloid  meets  the  case. 
For  him  there  will  be  no  toilsome  hills  and 
dark  valleys,  no  hot  sun  or  beating  rain,  no 
1 66 


On  Living  Heartily 

storm  or  stillness.  He  will  glide  forever  over 
the  polished  surface  of  his  existence,  neither 
hot  nor  cold,  but  in  an  atmosphere  regulated 
by  warm-water  pipes  in  the  winter  of  his 
emotions,  and  electric  fans  in  the  summer. 
There  will  be  no  frosts  or  failing  seasons,  no 
pulse  throbbing  with  fever,  no  heart  sick 
with  disappointment.  It  will  all  be  a  beau- 
tiful, sterilized  calm. 

Beloved,  I  've  nothing  like  that  to  offer 
you  out  of  my  experience.  In  the  world  I 
know  there  are  mountains  to  breast  and  val- 
leys to  wade;  but  the  depths  of  the  valley 
give  understanding  and  the  summit  of  the 
mountains  immortality.  If  I  were  to  say  that 
to  Mason,  he  would  stare  for  a  moment,  then 
he  would  laugh  and  say,  'Oh,  well,  if  you  are 
going  to  talk  like  that  —  but  my  philosophy 
does  n't  treat  with  rhetoric,  it  sticks  to  facts/ 

My  philosophy  sticks  to  facts,  too,  beloved ; 
and  I  who  loved  you  for  so  long  before  you 


Letters  to  My  Son 

were  given  to  me  would  not  want  to  blind 
your  eyes  to  truth  by  a  fanfare  of  fine  words 
when  all  the  day  and  night  my  heart  is  sing- 
ing with  joy  at  the  very  thought  of  your  man- 
hood. I  have  walked  with  Mason  and  he  sees 
nothing.  All  he  knows  of  the  meadows  is  that 
they're  jolly  damp  in  the  evening  and  are 
best  kept  away  from ;  and  of  the  hill,  that  to 
climb  it  quickly  makes  your  heart  beat 
deuced  fast.  I  have  walked  with  your  father, 
and  together  we  have  talked  with  our  lips 
of  other  things,  and  yet  not  failed  to  see  the 
moor-hen  scurrying  her  little  brood  across 
the  stream  or  the  lily-bud  sleeping  under  the 
willows.  Are  those  dear  and  tender  things 
less  true  than  the  truths  that  Mason  dis- 
covers in  the  meadows  or  on  the  hill  ?  and  is 
it  necessary  that  because  we  leave  the  mead- 
ows when  the  mists  are  sheeting  them,  we 
should  lose  thought  and  understanding  of  the 
beauties  that  are  always  there  ? 
168 


On  Living  Heartily 

Mason  would  drain  and  asphalt  the  fields 
before  he  would  think  it  wise  to  inhabit  them, 
and  so  he  would  treat  the  world  of  his  feel- 
ings. There  are  people  who  mistake  his  atti- 
tude for  spirituality,  and  use  his  theories  in 
the  advance  of  morality;  but  much  as  I  long 
for  you  to  be  clean  and  splendid  always,  I 
would  rather  see  you  run  the  whole  gamut 
of  evil,  than  I  would  have  you  leave  the  world 
as  undeveloped  as  you  entered  it,  as  unproved 
and  untried  as  the  Masons  of  the  world  must 
be,  and  of  as  little  use  to  a  troubled  man  in 
his  human  needs. 

Son  of  my  heart,  I  have,  through  the  pas- 
sionateness  of  me,  made  so  many  mistakes 
and  done  so  many  foolishnesses,  that  it 
would  seem  as  if  I  might  stand  for  one  of  the 
biggest  failures  that  was  ever  made.  But  I 
have  seen  many  great  things  on  the  way. 
The  very  pain  I  brought  upon  myself,  and  so 
passionately  resented,  opened  my  eyes  to  the 
169 


Letters  to  My  Son 

pain  of  others,  and  there  have  been  a  few 
who  have  turned  to  me  to  weep.  Some  of  the 
joy  that  a  woman  feels  when  her  baby  brings 
his  broken  knees  to  her  to  be  mended  belongs 
to  the  barren  woman  when  a  part  of  the 
world  turns  to  her  to  be  comforted.  I  have 
known  that,  and  I  would  not  change  it  for 
all  the  ease  offered  by  all  the  philosophers 
since  ever  the  world  began. 

Oh,  my  son,  sometimes  I  feel  fierce  for 
you,  and  it  is  so  when  I  think  of  such  men  as 
that.  They  talk  of  happiness.  'What  do  they 
know  of  happiness  who  only  happiness 
know '  ?  and  what  is  happiness  gained  at  such 
a  loss  ?  Would  the  leader,  with  the  cry  of 
battle  ringing  in  his  ears  and  the  hope  of 
victory  swelling  in  his  heart,  turn  from  his 
charge  to  lie  in  idleness  upon  the  softest  bed 
that  ever  was  ?  Or  would  the  runner,  jealous 
of  his  swiftness  and  desiring  no  reward  but 
the  proving  of  his  own  supremacy,  step  into 
170 


On  Living  Heartily 

a  bath-chair  and  allow  himself  to  be  trundled 
off  the  course  before  he  had  breasted  the 
tape  ?  Does  an  eagle  break  his  wing  to  save 
himself  the  trouble  of  flying  ?  or  a  man  part 
with  his  manhood  to  rid  himself  of  the  burden 
of  his  desires  ?  Ask  yourself  these  questions 
when  you  are  training  for  your  blue  or  woo- 
ing the  girl  of  your  heart,  and  see  what  use 
the  modern  psychologist  is  then.  He  will 
satisfy  all  those  in  whose  veins  trickles  tepid 
water,  but  the  man  of  blood  and  passions 
must  look  to  his  own  courage  and  his  own 
strength  for  help.  He  wants  a  lance  and  a 
helmet,  not  a  thermometer  and  a  medicine- 
chest.  He  will  fail  by  his  humanity,  but  he 
will  succeed  by  his  failures,  and  the  world 
will  be  all  the  warmer  because  of  him. 

Such  a  man  may  you  be,  my  beloved.  Live 

as  greatly  with  your  heart  as  with  your  brain, 

that  you  may  grow  kind,  and  as  perfectly 

with  your  body  as  with  your  spirit,  that  you 

171 


may  keep  sane.  Mortify  nothing  for  the  sheer 
sake  of  mortifying,  for  that  is  mutilation ;  but 
find  out  for  yourself  the  difference  between 
that  and  restraint. 

And  above  many  things,  be  tender  and 
careful  of  all  women,  good  or  bad,  beloved, 
for  indeed  they  need  it. 

I  think  of  you  as  a  man,  with  my  head  held 
high. 


XII 

The  Last 


XII 

The  Last 


LITTLE  one,  the  time  has  come  quite 
close  when  I  shall  have  you  for  my 
own ;  so  close  that  this  is  the  last  letter  I  shall 
be  able  to  write.  Now  that  it  has  come,  I 
don't  seem  to  be  afraid  any  more.  Perhaps 
it  will  take  me  away  from  you  and  Oliver 
altogether;  but  I  have  asked  that  if  I  am  not 
to  be  allowed  to  stay,  I  may  stay  just  long 
enough  to  feel  your  lips  upon  my  breast  and 
your  head  in  the  hollow  of  my  arm.  That 
will  be,  I  know.  For  the  rest,  I  can  think  of 
nothing  but  that  I  shall  at  last,  after  all  the 
years  of  longing,  see  your  face,  and  feel  your 
little  body  in  my  arms.  My  heart  seems  to 


Letters  to  My  Son 

be  a  great  white  flame,  because  of  the  love 
that  is  in  it,  and  my  body  is  full  of  gladness 
because  it  is  giving  you  to  Oliver.  Are  you 
going  to  be  a  great  little  gift,  beloved  ?  In- 
deed, I  think  so.  Be  true,  and  whatever  else 
your  life  is,  it  will  be  that  much  finer  for  it, 
because  there  is  nothing  really  great  that  is 
not  built  on  truth.  Love  Oliver  without  fear, 
and  give  him  your  whole  confidence,  for  he 
will  never  abuse  it.  Little  son,  you  do  not 
know  how  much  I  want  you  to  believe  that ! 
And  if  I  am  not  there,  you  will  love  him  for 
me  too,  won't  you  ?  I  am  afraid  he  will  be 
very  lonely  sometimes,  because  we  have  been 
a  great  deal  to  each  other;  but  if  he  has  you 
it  will  not  hurt  quite  so  much.  Oh,  my  darl- 
ing, though  I  am  not  afraid  any  more,  yet 
as  I  write  my  heart  goes  out  in  great  longing 
to  live.  There  are  so  many  things  I  could  do 
for  you  both  that  you  cannot  do  for  your- 
selves; so  many  ways  in  which  I  could  be  of 
176 


The  Last 

use  to  you,  for  men,  in  spite  of  their  man- 
ness,  are  in  some  ways  only  babies  to  the  very 
end.  That  is  one  of  the  things  that  keeps  us 
women  loving  you;  not  your  greatness,  but 
your  need  holds  us,  and  as  I  see  myself  going 
out,  I  wonder  anxiously  who  will  watch  for 
Oliver's  lumbago,  and  do  exactly  what  is 
needed  without  bothering  him  too  much. 
He  hates  too  much,  but  he  would  be  uncom- 
fortable with  too  little.  And  you,  if  they 
should  send  you  out  without  enough  warm 
clothes,  or  put  you  into  vests  that  were  not 
properly  aired  —  indeed,  indeed  it  would  be 
better  if  I  could  stay. 

I  cannot  write  more.  Oh,  my  little,  little 
thing,  God  bless  you  always  and  help  you  to 
grow  a  man !  You  will  never  forget  that  I  am 
loving  you  without  ceasing,  no  matter  how 
far  away  I  may  seem  to  be.  Good-bye,  my 
darling;  perhaps  it  will  only  be  for  a  little 
while.  Good-bye. 


fiiticrsibc 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .   A 


••••i  ••MI  inn  in  i  mil  |||||  [mi  |||;  |  | 

A     000  046  733     2 


